ill send you
to trial, and compel me to send you back to the Conciergerie; whereas
if you answer fully to my questions, you will sleep to-night in your own
house, and be rehabilitated by this paragraph in the papers: 'Monsieur
de Rubempre, who was arrested yesterday at Fontainebleau, was set at
liberty after a very brief examination.'"

This speech made a deep impression on Lucien; and the judge, seeing the
temper of his prisoner, added:

"I may repeat to you that you were suspected of being accessory to
the murder by poison of this Demoiselle Esther. Her suicide is clearly
proved, and there is an end of that; but a sum of seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs has been stolen, which she had disposed of
by will, and you are the legatee. This is a felony. The crime was
perpetrated before the discovery of the will.

"Now there is reason to suppose that a person who loves you as much as
you loved Mademoiselle Esther committed the theft for your benefit.--Do
not interrupt me," Camusot went on, seeing that Lucien was about to
speak, and commanding silence by a gesture; "I am asking you nothing
so far. I am anxious to make you understand how deeply your honor is
concerned in this question. Give up the false and contemptible notion of
the honor binding two accomplices, and tell the whole truth."

The reader must already have observed the extreme disproportion of the
weapons in this conflict between the prisoner under suspicion and the
examining judge. Absolute denial when skilfully used has in its favor
its positive simplicity, and sufficiently defends the criminal; but
it is, in a way, a coat of mail which becomes crushing as soon as the
stiletto of cross-examination finds a joint to it. As soon as mere
denial is ineffectual in face of certain proven facts, the examinee is
entirely at the judge's mercy.

Now, supposing that a sort of half-criminal, like Lucien, might, if he
were saved from the first shipwreck of his honesty, amend his ways, and
become a useful member of society, he will be lost in the pitfalls of
his examination.

The judge has the driest possible record drawn up of the proceedings, a
faithful analysis of the questions and answers; but no trace remains of
his insidiously paternal addresses or his captious remonstrances, such
as this speech. The judges of the superior courts see the results,
but see nothing of the means. Hence, as some experienced persons have
thought, it would be a good plan that, as