ur perpetual deceit. He
appealed, unhappy man, to my own right feeling; he sought to make our
fatal love as little wounding to others as it could be. We meant to hide
ourselves away forever. Thus I was the cause, the sole cause, of his
crime. Driven by necessity, the unhappy man, guilty of too much devotion
to an idol, chose from all evil acts the one which might be hereafter
reparable. I knew nothing of it till the moment of execution. At
that moment the hand of God threw down that scaffolding of false
contrivances--I heard the cries; they echo in my ears! I divined the
struggle, which I could not stop,--I, the cause of it! Tascheron was
maddened; I swear it."

Here Veronique turned her eyes upon Monsieur de Grandville, and a sob
was heard to issue from Denise Tascheron's breast.

"He lost his mind when he saw what he thought his happiness destroyed
by unforeseen circumstances. The unhappy man, misled by his love,
went headlong from a delinquent act to crime--from robbery to a double
murder. He left my mother's house an innocent man, he returned a guilty
one. I alone knew that there was neither premeditation nor any of the
aggravating circumstances on which he was sentenced to death. A hundred
times I thought of betraying myself to save him; a hundred times
a horrible and necessary restraint stopped the words upon my lips.
Undoubtedly, my presence near the scene had contributed to give him the
odious, infamous, ignoble courage of a murderer. Were it not for me,
he would have fled. I had formed that soul, trained that mind, enlarged
that heart; I knew it; he was incapable of cowardice or meanness. Do
justice to that involuntarily guilty arm, do justice to him, whom God,
in his mercy, has allowed to sleep in his quiet grave, where you have
wept for him, suspecting, it may be, the extenuating truth. Punish,
curse the guilty creature before you! Horrified by the crime when
once committed, I did my best to hide my share in it. Trusted by my
father--I, who was childless--to lead a child to God, I led him to the
scaffold! Ah! punish me, curse me, the hour has come!"

Saying these words, her eyes shone with the stoic pride of a savage.
The archbishop, standing behind her, and as if protecting her with the
pastoral cross, abandoned his impassible demeanor and covered his eyes
with his right hand. A muffled cry was heard, as though some one were
dying. Two persons, Gerard and Roubaud, received and carried away in
their arms,