on almost
choked his voice, "speak! Your silence is even more ruinous to me than
all the lies."

Clarissa lifted her eyes to him and asked with curious emotion: "Do you
really not know me, Bastide?"

"No! no! no!" he burst out, and looking upward he muttered in distress:
"She is demented."

Within a second's space Clarissa grew fiery red and again deathly pale.
And turning toward Bastide once more, she exclaimed in a terrible tone
of reproach: "Oh, murderer!"

The public applauded. Clarissa reeled, however; an usher of the court
hurried to her side and caught her in his arms, a number of ladies left
their places and busied themselves about her, and half an hour elapsed
before she regained consciousness; but her appearance was as changed as
if she had suddenly aged by twenty years. Monsieur d'Enjalran tried to
continue the examination, but she answered only in incoherent words;
she did not know; it was possible; she did not wish to contradict.
Bastide Grammont had resumed his seat in the prisoner's dock;
immeasurable distress and consternation were pictured on his
countenance. His counsel bade Clarissa, since she had spoken, to
continue. "I adjure you, Madame, make yourself clear," he said; "it
depends upon you whether an innocent man shall be saved or shall be
sent to the scaffold." Clarissa remained silent, as if she had not
heard; in her breast there surged, like morning mist over the waters, a
consoling and captivating image. Counselor Pinaud now turned to her
with a severe exhortation; she was not to think she could make her
assertions at will and suppress what she wished. The prosecuting
attorney spoke up for her, saying that the cause of her silence was
known; she herself had asserted that she entertained a conviction the
grounds of which she could not state; it should suffice that she had
uttered what was of the greatest importance; nay, he declared,
moreover, that any further urging would be improper. He had not
concluded his speech when Clarissa interrupted him; raising her right
arm she said in solemn protest: "I have taken no oath."

Bastide Grammont looked up. Shaking off his stupor, he raised himself
slowly and began in a voice all the more affecting by its calmness:
"Prison walls do not speak. And yet the time will come when they will
find a voice and will proclaim the secret means which have been
employed to force all these wretches to make lies a shameful bulwark of
their lives. Fualdes was not my