. I could not bring myself to think that
she had loved me before my departure for America, and, above all, from
the very beginning of my stay at Sainte-Severe. This was the one thought
that filled my mind; I did not even remember anything further about the
case or the object of my trial. It seemed to me that the sole question
at issue in this chill Areopagus was this: Is he loved, or is he not?
For me, victory or defeat, life or death, hung on that, and that alone.

I was roused from these reveries by the voice of Abbe Aubert. He was
thin and wasted, but seemed perfectly calm; he had been kept in solitary
confinement and had suffered all the hardships of prison life with the
resignation of a martyr. In spite, however, of all precautions, the
clever Marcasse, who could work his way anywhere like a ferret, had
managed to convey to him a letter from Arthur, to which Edmee had added
a few words. Authorized by this letter to say everything, he made a
statement similar to that made by Patience, and owned that Edmee's first
words after the occurrence had made him believe me guilty; but that
subsequently, seeing the patient's mental condition, and remembering my
irreproachable behaviour for more than six years, and obtaining a little
new light from the preceding trial and the public rumours about the
possible existence of Antony Mauprat, he had felt too convinced of my
innocence to be willing to give evidence which might injure me. If
he gave his evidence now, it was because he thought that further
investigations might have enlightened the court, and that his words
would not have the serious consequences they might have had a month
before.

Questioned as to Edmee's feelings for me, he completely destroyed all
Mademoiselle Leblanc's inventions, and declared that not only did Edmee
love me ardently, but that she had felt an affection for me from the
very first day we met. This he affirmed on oath, though emphasizing my
past misdeeds somewhat more than Edmee had done. He owned that at first
he had frequently feared that my cousin would be foolish enough to marry
me, but that he had never had any fear for her life, since he had always
seen her reduce me to submission by a single word or a mere look, even
in my most boorish days.

The continuation of the trial was postponed to await the results of the
warrants issued for the arrest of the assassin. People compared my trial
to that of Calas, and the comparison had no sooner become