shop or sheepfold,
where he would have learned to use a butcher knife, which was the chief
point for the accusation. Phillis wrote to the various towns where
Florentin had lived, and to tell the truth, he had worked at La Plata for
six months as accountant in a large sheepfold, but never slaughtered the
sheep.

When she received a letter, she carried it immediately to Saniel, and
then to Nougarede; and, at the same time, on all sides, in Paris, among
those who had held relations with her brother, she sought for testimony
that should prove to the jury that he could not be the man that his
accusers believed him. It was thus that, all alone, without other means
of action than those which she found in her sisterly tenderness and
bravery, she organized an investigation parallel to that of the law,
which, on the day of judgment, would carry a certain weight, it seemed,
with the conviction of the jury, showing them what had been the true life
of this irregular and debauched man, capable of anything to glut his
appetite and satisfy his desires.

Each time that she obtained a favorable deposition, she ran to Saniel to
tell him, and then together they repeated that a conviction was
impossible.

"You are sure, are you not?"

"Have I not always told you so?"

He had also said that Florentin could not be arrested, basing the
accusation on the torn button, and he had said that certainly an
'ordonnance de non-lieu' would be given by the judge; but they wished to
remember neither the one nor the other.

Things had reached this state, when one Saturday evening Phillis arrived
at Saniel's, radiant.

As soon as the door opened she exclaimed:

"He is saved!"

"An ordonnance de non-lieu?"

"No; but now it is of little importance. We can go to the assizes."

She breathed a sigh which showed how great were her fears, in spite of
the confidence she expressed when she repeated that conviction was
impossible.

He left his desk, and going toward her, took her in his arms, and made
her sit down beside him on the divan.

"You will see that I do not let myself be carried away by an illusion,
and that, as I tell you, he is saved, really saved. You know that an
illustrated paper has published his portrait?"

"I do not read illustrated papers."

"You could have seen them at the kiosks where they are displayed. It is
there that I saw them yesterday morning when I went out, and I was
petrified, red with shame, distracted, not knowing