x thousand dollars a
year left.

Of the whole "band," Mrs. Brian alone escaped.

Malgat, having surrendered to justice with the prescribed limits of time
to purge himself, was tried, and the whole process begun anew. But the
trial was naturally a mere form. His own lawyer had very little to
say. The state attorney himself made his defense. After having fully
explained the circumstances which had led the poor cashier to permit
a crime, rather than to commit it himself, the attorney said to the
jury,--

"Now, gentlemen, that you have learned what was the wrong of which he is
guilty, you ought also to know how he has expiated his crime.

"When he left the miserable woman who had ruined him, maddened by grief,
and determined to end his life, Malgat went home. There he found his
sister.

"She was one of those women who have religiously preserved the domestic
virtues of our forefathers, and who know of no compromise in questions
of honor.

"She had soon forced her brother to confess his fatal secret, and,
overcoming the horror she naturally felt, she found words, inspired
by her excellent heart, which moved him, and led him to reconsider his
resolve. She told him that suicide was but an additional crime, and that
he was in honor bound to live, so that he might make amends, and restore
the money he had stolen."

"Hope began to rise once more in his heart, and filled him with
unexpected energy. And yet what obstacles he had to encounter! How could
he ever hope to return four hundred thousand francs. How should he go
about to earn so much money? and where? How could he do anything, now
that he was compelled to live in concealment?

"Do you know, gentlemen, what this sister did in her almost sublime
devotion? She had a moderate income from state bonds; she sold them
all, and carried the proceeds to the president of the Mutual Discount
Society, begging him to be patient as to the remainder, and promising
that he should be repaid, capital and interest alike. She asked for
nothing but secrecy; and he pledged himself to secrecy.

"And from that day, gentlemen of the jury, the brother and the sister
have lived like the poorest laborers, working incessantly, and denying
themselves everything but what was indispensable for life itself.

"And this day, gentlemen, Malgat owes nothing to the society; he has
paid everything. He fell once; but he has risen again. And this place
in court, where he now sits as a prisoner, will bec