this day have shaken
her intellects. She is not responsible for her words--I assert it
solemnly, in the face of the whole court!"

The blood flew up into his white face as he made the asseveration. Even
at that supreme moment the great heart of the man reproached him for
yielding himself to a deception, though the motive of it was to save his
sister's life.

"Let her speak! let her speak!" exclaimed the women, as Rose, without
moving, without looking at her brother, without seeming even to have
heard what he said, made a second attempt to address her judges, in
spite of Trudaine's interposition.

"Silence!" shouted the man with the bludgeon. "Silence, you women! the
citizen president is going to speak."

"The prisoner Trudaine has the ear of the court," said the president,
"and may continue his confession. If the female prisoner wishes to
speak, she may be heard afterward. I enjoin both the accused persons
to make short work of it with their addresses to me, or they will
make their case worse instead of better. I command silence among the
audience, and if I am not obeyed, I will clear the hall. Now, prisoner
Trudaine, I invite you to proceed. No more about your sister; let her
speak for herself. Your business and ours is with the man and woman
Dubois. Are you, or are you not, ready to tell the court who they are?"

"I repeat that I am ready," answered Trudaine. "The citizen Dubois is
a servant. The woman Dubois is the mother of the man who denounces
me--Superintendent Danville."

A low, murmuring, rushing sound of hundreds of exclaiming voices, all
speaking, half-suppressedly, at the same moment, followed the delivery
of the answer. No officer of the court attempted to control the outburst
of astonishment. The infection of it spread to the persons on the
platform, to the crier himself, to the judges of the tribunal, lounging,
but the moment before, so carelessly silent in their chairs. When the
noise was at length quelled, it was subdued in the most instantaneous
manner by one man, who shouted from the throng behind the president's
chair:

"Clear the way there! Superintendent Danville is taken ill!"

A vehement whispering and contending of many voices interrupting each
other, followed; then a swaying among the assembly of official people;
then a great stillness; then the sudden appearance of Danville, alone,
at the table.

The look of him, as he turned his ghastly face toward the audience,
silenced and stea