of it," he said; "the prosecution has a strong case."

A slight tremor rustled Madame Graslin's dress.

"I feel cold," she said. Taking her mother's arm she went to bed.

"She seemed quite herself this evening," said her friends.

The next day Veronique was much worse and kept her bed. When her
physician expressed surprise at her condition she said, smiling:--

"I told you that that walk would do me no good."

Ever since the opening of the trial Tascheron's demeanor had been
equally devoid of hypocrisy or bravado. Veronique's physician, intending
to divert his patient's mind, tried to explain this demeanor, which the
man's defenders were making the most of. The prisoner was misled, said
the doctor, by the talents of his lawyer, and was sure of acquittal;
at times his face expressed a hope that was greater than that of merely
escaping death. The antecedents of the man (who was only twenty-three
years old) were so at variance with the crime now charged to him
that his legal defenders claimed his present bearing to be a proof of
innocence; besides, the overwhelming circumstantial proofs of the theory
of the prosecution were made to appear so weak by his advocate that the
man was buoyed up by the lawyer's arguments. To save his client's
life the lawyer made the most of the evident want of premeditation;
hypothetically he admitted the premeditation of the robbery but not of
the murders, which were evidently (no matter who was the guilty party)
the result of two unexpected struggles. Success, the doctor said, was
really as doubtful for one side as for the other.

After this visit of her physician Veronique received that of the
_procureur-general_, who was in the habit of coming in every morning on
his way to the court-room.

"I have read the arguments of yesterday," she said to him, "and to-day,
as I suppose, the evidence for the defence begins. I am so interested in
that man that I should like to have him saved. Couldn't you for once
in your life forego a triumph? Let his lawyer beat you. Come, make me a
present of the man's life, and perhaps you shall have mine some day. The
able presentation of the defence by Tascheron's lawyer really raises a
strong doubt, and--"

"Why, you are quite agitated," said the viscount somewhat surprised.

"Do you know why?" she answered. "My husband has just remarked a most
horrible coincidence, which is really enough in the present state of my
nerves, to cause my death. If you conde