utor's private room forms part of an octagon wing
flanking the Galerie Marchande, built out recently in regard to the age
of the structure, over the prison yard, outside the women's quarters.
All this part of the Palais is overshadowed by the lofty and noble
edifice of the Sainte-Chapelle. And all is solemn and silent.

Monsieur de Granville, a worthy successor of the great magistrates of
the ancient Parlement, would not leave Paris without coming to some
conclusion in the matter of Lucien. He expected to hear from Camusot,
and the judge's message had plunged him into the involuntary suspense
which waiting produces on even the strongest minds. He had been sitting
in the window-bay of his private room; he rose, and walked up and down,
for having lingered in the morning to intercept Camusot, he had found
him dull of apprehension; he was vaguely uneasy and worried.

And this was why.

The dignity of his high functions forbade his attempting to fetter the
perfect independence of the inferior judge, and yet this trial
nearly touched the honor and good name of his best friend and warmest
supporter, the Comte de Serizy, Minister of State, member of the Privy
Council, Vice-President of the State Council, and prospective Chancellor
of the Realm, in the event of the death of the noble old man who held
that august office. It was Monsieur de Serizy's misfortune to adore
his wife "through fire and water," and he always shielded her with his
protection. Now the public prosecutor fully understood the terrible fuss
that would be made in the world and at court if a crime should be proved
against a man whose name had been so often and so malignantly linked
with that of the Countess.

"Ah!" he sighed, folding his arms, "formerly the supreme authority could
take refuge in an appeal. Nowadays our mania for equality"--he dared
not say _for Legality_, as a poetic orator in the Chamber courageously
admitted a short while since--"is the death of us."

This noble magistrate knew all the fascination and the miseries of an
illicit attachment. Esther and Lucien, as we have seen, had taken the
rooms where the Comte de Granville had lived secretly on connubial terms
with Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, and whence she had fled one day,
lured away by a villain. (See _A Double Marriage_.)

At the very moment when the public prosecutor was saying to himself,
"Camusot is sure to have done something silly," the examining magistrate
knocked twice at the