t I desire to say one word in
reference to my sister, charged here at the bar with me." His voice grew
less steady, and, for the first time, his color began to change, as
Rose lifted her face from his shoulder and looked up at him eagerly.
"I implore the tribunal to consider my sister as innocent of all active
participation in what is charged against me as a crime--" He went
on. "Having spoken with candor about myself, I have some claim to be
believed when I speak of her; when I assert that she neither did help me
nor could help me. If there be blame, it is mine only; if punishment, it
is I alone who should suffer."

He stopped suddenly, and grew confused. It was easy to guard himself
from the peril of looking at Rose, but he could not escape the hard
trial to his self-possession of hearing her, if she spoke. Just as
he pronounced the last sentence, she raised her face again from his
shoulder, and eagerly whispered to him:

"No, no, Louis! Not that sacrifice, after all the others--not that,
though you should force me into speaking to them myself!"

She abruptly quitted her hold of him, and fronted the whole court in
an instant. The railing in front of her shook with the quivering of
her arms and hands as she held by it to support herself! Her hair lay
tangled on her shoulders; her face had assumed a strange fixedness; her
gentle blue eyes, so soft and tender at all other times, were lit up
wildly. A low hum of murmured curiosity and admiration broke from the
women of the audience. Some rose eagerly from the benches; others cried:

"Listen, listen! she is going to speak!"

She did speak. Silvery and pure the sweet voice, sweeter than ever in
sadness, stole its way through the gross sounds--through the coarse
humming and the hissing whispers.

"My lord the president," began the poor girl firmly. Her next words were
drowned in a volley of hisses from the women.

"Ah! aristocrat, aristocrat! None of your accursed titles here!" was
their shrill cry at her. She fronted that cry, she fronted the fierce
gestures which accompanied it, with the steady light still in her eyes,
with the strange rigidity still fastened on her face. She would have
spoken again through the uproar and execration, but her brother's voice
overpowered her.

"Citizen president," he cried, "I have not concluded. I demand leave to
complete my confession. I implore the tribunal to attach no importance
to what my sister says. The trouble and terror of