able to obtain at rare intervals in
the course of her ceaseless anxiety, and taken to the prefecture to
undergo an examination. An order to keep the accused from holding any
communication with each other or with their counsel was sent to the
prison. At ten o'clock the crowd which assembled around the courtroom
were informed that the trial was postponed until one o'clock in the
afternoon of the same day.

This change of hour, following on the news of the senator's deliverance,
Marthe's arrest, and that of Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, together with
the denial of the right to communicate with the prisoners carried terror
to the hotel de Chargeboeuf. The whole town and the spectators who had
come to Troyes to be present at the trial, the short-hand writers
for the daily journals, even the populace were in a ferment which can
readily be imagined. The Abbe Goujet came at ten o'clock to see Monsieur
and Madame d'Hauteserre and the counsel for the defence, who were
breakfasting--as well as they could under the circumstances. The abbe
took Bordin and Monsieur Grandville apart, told them what Marthe had
confided to him the day before, and gave them the fragment of the letter
she had received. The two lawyers exchanged a look, after which Bordin
said to the abbe: "Not a word of all this! The case is lost; but at any
rate let us show a firm front."

Marthe was not strong enough to evade the cross-questioning of the
director of the jury and the public prosecutor. Moreover the proof
against her was too overwhelming. Lechesneau had sent for the under
crust of the last loaf of bread she had carried to the cavern, also for
the empty bottles and various other articles. During the senator's long
hours of captivity he had formed conjectures in his own mind and had
looked for indications which might put him on the track of his enemies.
These he now communicated to the authorities. Michu's farmhouse, lately
built, had, he supposed, a new oven; the tiles or bricks on which the
bread was baked would show their jointed lines on the bottom of the
loaves, and thus afford a proof that the bread supplied to him was baked
on that particular oven. So with the wine brought in bottles sealed with
green wax, which would probably be found identical with other bottles in
Michu's cellar. These shrewd observations, which Malin imparted to the
justice of peace, who made the first examination (taking Marthe with
him), led to the results foreseen by the senato