nto sight, bathed in the last rays of the
setting sun. When the women saw it they could not restrain their tears;
they wept aloud.

IX. DENISE

The young man whom these two different loves were now on their way
to comfort, who excited so much artless curiosity, so much spurious
sympathy and true solicitude, was lying on his prison pallet in one
of the condemned cells. A spy watched beside the door to catch, if
possible, any words that might escape him, either in sleep or in one of
his violent furies; so anxious were the officers of justice to exhaust
all human means of discovering Jean-Francois Tascheron's accomplice and
recover the sums stolen.

The des Vanneaulx had promised a reward to the police, and the police
kept constant watch on the obstinate silence of the prisoner. When the
man on duty looked through a loophole made for the purpose he saw the
convict always in the same position, bound in the straight-jacket, his
head secured by a leather thong ever since he had attempted to tear the
stuff of the jacket with his teeth.

Jean-Francois gazed steadily at the ceiling with a fixed and despairing
eye, a burning eye, as if reddened by the terrible thoughts behind it.
He was a living image of the antique Prometheus; the memory of some lost
happiness gnawed at his heart. When the solicitor-general himself went
to see him that magistrate could not help testifying his surprise at
a character so obstinately persistent. No sooner did any one enter his
cell than Jean-Francois flew into a frenzy which exceeded the limits
known to physicians for such attacks. The moment he heard the key turn
in the lock or the bolts of the barred door slide, a light foam whitened
his lips.

Jean-Francois Tascheron, then twenty-five years of age, was small
but well-made. His wiry, crinkled hair, growing low on his forehead,
indicated energy. His eyes, of a clear and luminous yellow, were too
near the root of the nose,--a defect which gave him some resemblance
to birds of prey. The face was round, of the warm brown coloring which
marks the inhabitants of middle France. One feature of his physiognomy
confirmed an assertion of Lavater as to persons who are destined to
commit murder; his front teeth lapped each other. Nevertheless his face
bore all the characteristics of integrity and a sweet and artless moral
nature; there was nothing surprising in the fact that a woman had loved
him passionately. His fresh mouth with its dazzling tee