f conspiracy against the Republic; the female
prisoner, of criminal knowledge of the same."

"Produce your proofs in answer to this order."

Picard and Magloire opened their minutes of evidence, and read to the
president the same particulars which they had formerly read to Lomaque
in the secret police office.

"Good," said the president, when they had done, "we need trouble
ourselves with nothing more than the identifying of the citizen and
citoyenne Dubois, which, of course, you are prepared for. Have you heard
the evidence?" he continued, turning to the prisoners; while Picard and
Magloire consulted together in whispers, looking perplexedly toward the
chief agent, who stood silent behind them. "Have you heard the evidence,
prisoners? Do you wish to say anything? If you do, remember that the
time of this tribunal is precious, and that you will not be suffered to
waste it."

"I demand permission to speak for myself and for my sister," answered
Trudaine. "My object is to save the time of the tribunal by making a
confession."

The faint whispering, audible among the women spectators a moment
before, ceased instantaneously as he pronounced the word confession. In
the breathless silence, his low, quiet tones penetrated to the remotest
corners of the hall; while, suppressing externally all evidences of the
death-agony of hope within him, he continued his address in these words:

"I confess my secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery. I confess
that the persons whom I went to see are the persons pointed at in the
evidence. And, lastly, I confess that my object in communicating with
them as I did was to supply them with the means of leaving France. If
I had acted from political motives to the political prejudice of the
existing government, I admit that I should be guilty of that conspiracy
against the Republic with which I am charged. But no political purpose
animated, no political necessity urged me, in performing the action
which has brought me to the bar of this tribunal. The persons whom I
aided in leaving France were without political influence or political
connections. I acted solely from private motives of humanity toward them
and toward others--motives which a good republican may feel, and yet not
turn traitor to the welfare of his country."

"Are you ready to inform the court, next, who the man and woman Dubois
really are?" inquired the president, impatiently.

"I am ready," answered Trudaine. "But firs