"Poor Champcey!"

And like a man who no longer possesses himself, who must move somehow,
he stuffed the letter in his pocket, and went out, swearing till the
plaster seemed to fall from the ceiling.

Precisely at the same hour, the magistrate, who had been notified of the
trial, came to ask for news. Seeing the old surgeon cross the hospital
yard, he ran up and asked, as soon as he was within hearing,--

"Well?"

The doctor went a few steps farther, and then replied in a tone of
despair,--

"Lieut. Champcey is lost!"

"Great God! What do you mean?"

"What I think. Daniel has a violent brain-fever, or rather congestion of
the brain. Weakened, exhausted, extenuated as he is, how can he endure
it? He cannot; that is evident. It would take another miracle to
save him now; and you may rest assured it won't be done. In less
than twenty-four hours he will be a dead man, and his assassins will
triumph."

"Oh!"

The old surgeon's eyes glared with rage; and a sardonic smile curled his
lips as he continued,--

"And who could keep those rascals from triumphing? If Daniel dies, you
will be bound to release that scamp, the wretched murderer whom you keep
imprisoned,--that man Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet; for there will be no
evidence. Or, if you send him before a court, he will be declared guilty
of involuntary homicide. And yet you know, as well as I do, he has
wantonly fired at one of the noblest creatures I have ever known. And,
when he has served his term, he will receive the price of Champcey's
life, and he will spend it in orgies; and the others, the true
criminals, who have hired him, will go about the world with lofty pride,
rich, honored, and haughty."

"Doctor!"

But the old original was not to be stopped. He went on,--

"Ah, let me alone! Your human justice,--do you want me to tell you what
I think of it? I am ashamed of it! When you send every year three or
four stupid murderers to the scaffold, and some dozens of miserable
thieves to the penitentiary, you fold your black gowns around you, and
proudly proclaim that all is well, and that society, thus protected, may
sleep soundly. Well, do you know what is the real state of things? You
only catch the stupid, the fools. The others, the strong, escape between
the meshes of your laws, and, relying on their cleverness and your want
of power, they enjoy the fruit of their crimes in all the pride of their
impunity, until"--

He hesitated, and added, unlike h