"But, on the day you were describing, your wine had a bitter taste?"

"It had, sir, but not sufficiently so to prevent my drinking it; and I
attributed it to the wine being turned."

Morel, with fixed eye and haggard look, listened both to the questions
of Rodolph and the answers of Louise without appearing to understand to
what they tended.

"And before falling asleep on your chair, did not your head seem
unusually heavy, and your limbs weary?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I felt a fullness and throbbing in my temples, an icy
coldness seemed to fill my veins, and a feeling of unusual discomfort
oppressed me."

"Wretch, villainous wretch!" exclaimed Rodolph. "Are you aware, Morel,
what this man made your poor child take in her wine?"

The artisan gazed at Rodolph without replying to his question.

"His accomplice, the housekeeper, had mingled in Louise's drink some
sort of stupefying drug, most probably opium, by which means both the
bodily and mental powers of your unfortunate daughter were completely
paralysed for several hours; and when she awoke from this lethargic
state it was to find herself dishonoured and disgraced."

"Ah, now," exclaimed Louise, "my misfortune is explained. You see, dear
father, I am less guilty than you thought me. Father! dear, dear father!
look upon me, bestow one little look of pity and of pardon on your poor
Louise!"

But the glance of the lapidary was fixed and vacant; his honest mind
could not comprehend the idea of so black, so monstrous a crime as that
ascribed to the notary, and he gazed with blank wonder at the words he
heard, as though quite unable to affix any meaning to them. And besides,
during the latter part of the discourse, his intellect became evidently
shaken, his ideas became a shapeless, confused mass of wandering
recollections; a mere chaotic mass of griefs and sorrows possessed his
brain, and he sank into a state of mental prostration, which is to
intellect what darkness is to the sight,--the formidable symptoms of a
weakened brain. After a pause of some length, Morel replied, in a low,
hasty tone:

"Yes, yes; it is bad, very, very bad; cannot be worse!" and then
relapsed into his former apathy; while Rodolph, watching him with pained
attention, perceived that the energy, even of indignation, was becoming
exhausted within the mind of the miserable father, in the same manner as
excess of grief will frequently dry up the relief of tears. Anxious to
put an end as quickl