ead of that"--he pointed at the little
door through which he was to pass, and said in a heartrending tone,--

"Instead of that, there is the door to the galleys. Henceforth"--

A sob cut short his words. His strength was exhausted; for if there are,
so to say, no limits to the power of endurance of the spirit, the energy
of the body has its bounds. Refusing the arm which the sergeant offered
him, he rushed out of the room.

M. Magloire was well-nigh beside himself with grief.

"Ah! why could we not save him?" he said to his young colleague. "Let
them come and speak to me again of the power of conviction. But we must
not stay here: let us go!"

They threw themselves into the crowd, which was slowly dispersing, all
palpitating yet with the excitement of the day.

A strange reaction was already beginning to set in,--a reaction
perfectly illogic, and yet intelligible, and by no means rare under
similar circumstances.

Jacques de Boiscoran, an object of general execration as long as he
was only suspected, regained the sympathy of all the moment he was
condemned. It was as if the fatal sentence had wiped out the horror of
the crime. He was pitied; his fate was deplored; and as they thought
of his family, his mother, and his betrothed, they almost cursed the
severity of the judges.

Besides, even the least observant among those present had been struck by
the singular course which the proceedings had taken. There was not
one, probably, in that vast assembly who did not feel that there was
a mysterious and unexplored side of the case, which neither the
prosecution nor the defence had chosen to approach. Why had Cocoleu been
mentioned only once, and then quite incidentally? He was an idiot, to be
sure; but it was nevertheless through his evidence alone that suspicions
had been aroused against M. de Boiscoran. Why had he not been summoned
either by the prosecution or by the defence?

The evidence given by Count Claudieuse, also, although apparently so
conclusive at the moment, was now severely criticised.

The most indulgent said,--

"That was not well done. That was a trick. Why did he not speak out
before? People do not wait for a man to be down before they strike him."

Others added,--

"And did you notice how M. de Boiscoran and Count Claudieuse looked at
each other? Did you hear what they said to each other? One might have
sworn that there was something else, something very different from a
mere lawsuit, betwe