ion
on earth, and he has fixed thy duties. When Jacques Colis refused thy
daughter he left his country to escape thy revenge?"

"Were Jacques Colis living, he would not utter so foul a lie!"

"I knew his honest and upright nature!" exclaimed Marguerite with energy!
"God pardon me that I ever doubted it!"

The judges turned inquisitive glances towards indistinct cluster of
females, but the examination did not the less proceed.

"Thou knowest, then, that Jacques Colis is dead?"

"How can I doubt it, mein Herr, when I saw his bleeding body?"

"Balthazar, thou seemest disposed to aid the examination, though with what
views is better known to Him who sees the inmost heart, than to me. I will
come at once, therefore, to the most essential facts. Thou art a native
and a resident of Berne; the headsman of the canton--a creditable office
in itself, though the ignorance and prejudices of man are not apt so to
consider it. Thou wouldst have married thy daughter with a substantial
peasant of Vaud. The intended bridegroom repudiated thy child, in face of
the thousands who came to Vevey to witness the festivities of the Abbaye;
he departed on a journey to avoid thee, or his own feelings, or rumor, or
what thou wilt; he met his death by murder on this mountain; his body was
discovered with the knife in the recent wound, and thou, who shouldst have
been on thy path homeward, wert found passing the night near the murdered
man. Thine own reason will show thee the connexion which we are led to
form between these several events, and thou art now required to explain
that which to us seems so suspicious, but which to thyself may be clear.
Speak freely, but speak truth, as thou reverest God, and in thine own
interest."

Balthazar hesitated and appeared to collect his thoughts. His head was
lowered in a thoughtful attitude, and then, looking his examiner steadily
in the face, he replied. His manner was calm, and the tone in which he
spoke, if not that of one innocent in fact, was that of one who well knew
how to assume the exterior of that character.

"Herr Chatelain," he said, "I have foreseen the suspicions that would be
apt to fasten on me in these unhappy circumstances, but, used to trust in
Providence, I shall speak the truth without fear. Of the intention of
Jacques Colis to depart I knew nothing. He went his way privately, and if
you will do me the justice to reflect a little, it will be seen that I was
the last man to whom he w