had I to commit such a crime, even admitting that my reputation did not
place me above so odious and absurd a charge?"

"You are said to have acted, sir, in furtherance of a family plot,
devised against Mdlle. de Cardoville for a pecuniary motive."

"And who has dared, sir, to make so calumnious a charge?" cried Dr.
Baleinier, with indignant warmth. "Who has had the audacity to accuse
a respectable, and I dare to say, respected man, of having been the
accomplice in such infamy?"

"I," said Rodin, coldly.

"You!" cried Dr. Baleinier, falling back two steps, as if thunderstruck.

"Yes, I accuse you," repeated Rodin, in a clear sharp voice.

"Yes, it was this gentleman who came to me this morning, with ample
proofs, to demand my interference in favor of Mdlle. de Cardoville,"
said the magistrate, drawing back a little, to give Adrienne the
opportunity of seeing her defender.

Throughout this scene, Rodin's name had not hitherto been mentioned.
Mdlle. de Cardoville had often heard speak of the Abbe d'Aigrigny's
secretary in no very favorable terms; but, never having seen him, she
did not know that her liberator was this very Jesuit. She therefore
looked towards him, with a glance in which were mingled curiosity,
interest, surprise and gratitude. Rodin's cadaverous countenance, his
repulsive ugliness, his sordid dress, would a few days before have
occasioned Adrienne a perhaps invincible feeling of disgust. But the
young lady, remembering how the sempstress, poor, feeble, deformed,
and dressed almost in rags was endowed notwithstanding her wretched
exterior, with one of the noblest and most admirable hearts, recalled
this recollection in favor of the Jesuit. She forgot that he was ugly
and sordid, only to remember that he was old, that he seemed poor, and
that he had come to her assistance. Dr. Baleinier, notwithstanding his
craft, notwithstanding his audacious hypocrisy, in spite even of his
presence of mind, could not conceal how much he was disturbed by Rodin's
denunciation. His head became troubled as he remembered how, on the
first day of Adrienne's confinement in this house, the implacable appeal
of Rodin, through the hole in the door, had prevented him (Baleinier)
from yielding to emotions of pity, inspired by the despair of this
unfortunate young girl, driven almost to doubt of her own reason. And
yet it was this very Rodin, so cruel, so inexorable, the devoted agent
of Father d'Aigrigny, who denounced him (