e made while you're away?"

"No! Not now that Darzac is in prison," he answered.

With this strange remark he left. I was not to see him again until
the day of Darzac's trial at the court when he appeared to explain the
inexplicable.

CHAPTER XXVI. In Which Joseph Rouletabille Is Awaited with Impatience

On the 15th of January, that is to say, two months and a half after the
tragic events I have narrated, the "Epoque" printed, as the first column
of the front page, the following sensational article: "The Seine-et-Oise
jury is summoned to-day to give its verdict on one of the most
mysterious affairs in the annals of crime. There never has been a case
with so many obscure, incomprehensible, and inexplicable points. And yet
the prosecution has not hesitated to put into the prisoner's dock a
man who is respected, esteemed, and loved by all who knew him--a young
savant, the hope of French science, whose whole life has been devoted to
knowledge and truth. When Paris heard of Monsieur Robert Darzac's arrest
a unanimous cry of protest arose from all sides. The whole Sorbonne,
disgraced by this act of the examining magistrate, asserted its
belief in the innocence of Mademoiselle Stangerson's fiance. Monsieur
Stangerson was loud in his denunciation of this miscarriage of justice.
There is no doubt in the mind of anybody that could the victim speak she
would claim from the jurors of Seine-et-Oise the man she wishes to make
her husband and whom the prosecution would send to the scaffold. It
is to be hoped that Mademoiselle Stangerson will shortly recover her
reason, which has been temporarily unhinged by the horrible mystery at
the Glandier. The question before the jury is the one we propose to deal
with this very day.

"We have decided not to permit twelve worthy men to commit a disgraceful
miscarriage of justice. We confess that the remarkable coincidences, the
many convicting evidences, and the inexplicable silence on the part of
the accused, as well as a total absence of any evidence for an alibi,
were enough to warrant the bench of judges in assuming that in this
man alone was centered the truth of the affair. The evidences are,
in appearance, so overwhelming against Monsieur Robert Darzac that a
detective so well informed, so intelligent, and generally so successful,
as Monsieur Frederic Larsan, may be excused for having been misled by
them. Up to now everything has gone against Monsieur Robert Darzac in
the magi