e is suffering, he is in
prison; I am free, and yet I can do nothing for him! Great heaven!
inspire me with accents to touch the hearts of men! At whose feet must I
cast myself to obtain his pardon?"

She suddenly stopped, surprised at having uttered such a word.

"Pardon!" she repeated fiercely; "he has no need of pardon. Why am I
only a woman? Can I not find one man who will help me? Yes," she said
after a moment's reflection, "there is one man who owes himself to
Albert; since he it was who put him in this position,--the Count de
Commarin. He is his father, and yet he has abandoned him. Ah, well! I
will remind him that he still has a son."

The magistrate rose to see her to the door; but she had already
disappeared, taking the kind-hearted Schmidt with her.

M. Daburon, more dead than alive, sank back again in his chair. His eyes
filled with tears.

"And that is what she is!" he murmured. "Ah! I made no vulgar choice! I
had divined and understood all her good qualities."

He had never loved her so much; and he felt that he would never be
consoled for not having won her love in return. But, in the midst of his
meditations, a sudden thought passed like a flash across his brain.

Had Claire spoken the truth? Had she not been playing a part previously
prepared? No, most decidedly no! But she might have been herself
deceived, might have been the dupe of some skillful trick.

In that case old Tabaret's prediction was now realised.

Tabaret had said: "Look out for an indisputable _alibi_."

How could he show the falsity of this one, planned in advance, affirmed
by Claire, who was herself deceived?

How could he expose a plan, so well laid that the prisoner had been
able without danger to await certain results, with his arms folded, and
without himself moving in the matter?

And yet, if Claire's story were true, and Albert innocent!

The magistrate struggled in the midst of inextricable difficulties,
without a plan, without an idea.

He arose.

"Oh!" he said in a loud voice, as though encouraging himself, "at the
Palais, all will be unravelled."

CHAPTER XVI.

M. Daburon had been surprised at Claire's visit.

M. de Commarin was still more so, when his valet whispered to him that
Mademoiselle d'Arlange desired a moment's conversation with him.

M. Daburon had broken a handsome card-plate; M. de Commarin, who was at
breakfast, dropped his knife on his plate.

Like the magistrate he exclaimed, "Clai