e Virgin must have kissed Jesus in the tomb.

"I meant then to give myself up to justice without driving any bargain;
but now I must make one, and you shall know why."

"Are you speaking to the judge or to Monsieur de Granville?" asked the
magistrate.

The two men, Crime and Law, looked at each other. The magistrate had
been strongly moved by the convict; he felt a sort of divine pity for
the unhappy wretch; he understood what his life and feelings were.
And besides, the magistrate--for a magistrate is always a
magistrate--knowing nothing of Jacques Collin's career since his escape
from prison, fancied that he could impress the criminal who, after
all, had only been sentenced for forgery. He would try the effect of
generosity on this nature, a compound, like bronze, of various elements,
of good and evil.

Again, Monsieur de Granville, who had reached the age of fifty-three
without ever having been loved, admired a tender soul, as all men do who
have not been loved. This despair, the lot of many men to whom women can
only give esteem and friendship, was perhaps the unknown bond on which
a strong intimacy was based that united the Comtes de Bauvan, de
Granville, and de Serizy; for a common misfortune brings souls into
unison quite as much as a common joy.

"You have the future before you," said the public prosecutor, with an
inquisitorial glance at the dejected villain.

The man only expressed by a shrug the utmost indifference to his fate.

"Lucien made a will by which he leaves you three hundred thousand
francs."

"Poor, poor chap! poor boy!" cried Jacques Collin. "Always too honest!
I was all wickedness, while he was goodness--noble, beautiful, sublime!
Such lovely souls cannot be spoiled. He had taken nothing from me but my
money, sir."

This utter and complete surrender of his individuality, which the
magistrate vainly strove to rally, so thoroughly proved his dreadful
words, that Monsieur de Granville was won over to the criminal. The
public prosecutor remained!

"If you really care for nothing," said Monsieur de Granville, "what did
you want to say to me?"

"Well, is it not something that I have given myself up? You were getting
warm, but you had not got me; besides, you would not have known what to
do with me----"

"What an antagonist!" said the magistrate to himself.

"Monsieur le Comte, you are about to cut off the head of an innocent
man, and I have discovered the culprit," said Jacques Collin,