g consolingly
to her; but the consummation of her husband's perfidy seemed to have
paralyzed her at heart. She murmured once in her brother's ear, "Louis!
I am resigned to die--nothing but death is left for me after the
degradation of having loved that man." She said those words and closed
her eyes wearily, and spoke no more.

"One other question, and you may retire," resumed the president,
addressing Danville. "Were you cognizant of your wife's connection with
her brother's conspiracy?"

Danville reflected for a moment, remembered that there were witnesses in
court who could speak to his language and behavior on the evening of his
wife's arrest, and resolved this time to tell the truth.

"I was not aware of it," he answered. "Testimony in my favor can be
called which will prove that when my wife's complicity was discovered I
was absent from Paris."

Heartlessly self-possessed as he was, the public reception of his last
reply had shaken his nerve. He now spoke in low tones, turning his back
on the spectators, and fixing his eyes again on the green baize of the
table at which he stood.

"Prisoners, have you any objection to make, any evidence to call,
invalidating the statement by which Citizen Danville has cleared himself
of suspicion?" inquired the president.

"He has cleared himself by the most execrable of all falsehoods,"
answered Trudaine. "If his mother could be traced and brought here, her
testimony would prove it."

"Can you produce any other evidence in support of your allegation?"
asked the president.

"I cannot."

"Citizen Superintendent Danville, you are at liberty to retire. Your
statement will be laid before the authority to whom you are officially
responsible. Either you merit a civic crown for more than Roman virtue,
or--" Having got thus far, the president stopped abruptly, as if
unwilling to commit himself too soon to an opinion, and merely repeated,
"You may retire."

Danville left the court immediately, going out again by the public door.
He was followed by murmurs from the women's benches, which soon ceased,
however, when the president was observed to close his note-book, and
turn round toward his colleagues. "The sentence!" was the general
whisper now. "Hush, hush--the sentence!"

After a consultation of a few minutes with the persons behind him, the
president rose, and spoke the momentous words:

"Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary tribunal, having
heard the charg