him; and your prudence advises me
to act with the world. Men behave thus, I have heard, when one of their
friends is down; but women never do. Look about you; however humiliated,
however wretched, however low, a man may be, you will always find a
woman near to sustain and console him. When the last friend has boldly
taken to flight, when the last relation has abandoned him, woman
remains."

The magistrate regretted having been carried away perhaps a little too
far. Claire's excitement frightened him. He tried, but in vain, to stop
her.

"I may be timid," she continued with increasing energy, "but I am no
coward. I chose Albert voluntarily from amongst all. Whatever happens,
I will never desert him. No, I will never say, 'I do not know this man.'
He would have given me half of his prosperity, and of his glory. I
will share, whether he wishes it or not, half of his shame and of his
misfortune. Between two, the burden will be less heavy to bear. Strike!
I will cling so closely to him that no blow shall touch him without
reaching me, too. You counsel me to forget him. Teach me, then, how to.
I forget him? Could I, even if I wished? But I do not wish it. I love
him. It is no more in my power to cease loving him than it is to
arrest, by the sole effort of my will, the beating of my heart. He is a
prisoner, accused of murder. So be it. I love him. He is guilty! What
of that? I love him. You will condemn him, you will dishonour him.
Condemned and dishonoured, I shall love him still. You will send him
to a convict prison. I will follow him; and in the prison, under the
convict's dress, I will yet love him. If he falls to the bottom of the
abyss, I will fall with him. My life is his, let him dispose of it. No,
nothing will separate me from him, nothing short of death! And, if he
must mount the scaffold, I shall die, I know it, from the blow which
kills him."

M. Daburon had buried his face in his hands. He did not wish Claire to
perceive a trace of the emotion which affected him.

"How she loves him!" he thought, "how she loves him!"

His mind was sunk in the darkest thoughts. All the stings of jealousy
were rending him. What would not be his delight, if he were the object
of so irresistible a passion as that which burst forth before him! What
would he not give in return! He had, too, a young and ardent soul, a
burning thirst for love. But who had ever thought of that? He had been
esteemed, respected, perhaps feared, but n