“Your sentence for what? If there were a single judge among you, a single man who had any sense of reason and probability, he would laugh at your stupid charges and your unconnected proofs.” “Words! Phrases!” he cried. “What we want are proofs to the contrary.... Something to disprove the evidence that my eyes gave me.” “What use would it be to defend myself? You have made up your minds.” “We have made them up because you are guilty.” “Guilty of pursuing the same end as you; yes, that I admit. And that is the reason why you committed that shameful action of coming to spy upon me and play that comedy of love. If you were caught by your own snare, all the worse for you. If you have revealed to me facts about the enigma, of which I already knew the existence from the document of Cagliostro, all the worse for you! Now it is an obsession with me; and I have sworn to attain that end, whatever happens, in spite of you. That and that only is my crime--in your eyes.” “Your crime is murder,” asserted Beaumagnan, who was again losing his temper. “I have not murdered anyone,” she said firmly. “You pushed Saint-Hébert over the cliff; you fractured d’Isneauval’s skull.” “Saint-Hébert? D’Isneauval? I never knew them. I hear their names for the first time to-day,” she protested. “And me! And me!” he exclaimed violently. “Didn’t you know _me_? Didn’t you try to poison _me_?” “No.” He lost his temper utterly and in an access of fury he roared: “But I saw you, Josephine Balsamo! I saw you as clearly as I see you now! While you were putting that poison in the box, I saw your smile grow ferocious and the corners of your lips rise in the grin of the damned!” She shook her head and said firmly: “It was not I.” He appeared to choke. How dared she say such a thing? But quite coolly she laid her hand on his shoulder and said quietly: “Hate is making you lose your wits, Beaumagnan. Your fanatical soul is in a wild revolt against the sin of love. However, in spite of that, I suppose you’ll allow me to defend myself?” “It is your right, but be quick about it,” he said less loudly, but coldly. “It won’t take long. Ask your friends for the miniature, painted in 1816, of the Countess of Cagliostro.” Beaumagnan obeyed and took the miniature from the hands of the Baron. “Good. Look at it carefully,” she went on. “It is my portrait, isn’t it?” “What are you driving at?” he said. “Answer. Is it my portrait?” she said impatiently. “Yes,” he said with decision. “Then if that is my portrait it means that I was alive at that time? It is eighty years ago; and from that portrait I was then twenty-five or thirty? Consider carefully before answering. What! In the face of such a miracle you hesitate, do you? You dare not assert that it is a fact; now, dare you?” She paused, gazing at him with compelling eyes; then she continued: