“They have heard all the witnesses. I have deposed. But what was very hard was to find myself in the small hall with Greslon’s mother. It is a chance if she does not come down here. She is at the Hôtel du Commerce, where she has begged me to come to talk with her. Ah! what a scene! She has a face not to be forgotten, a severe face, with black eyes which have, as it were, a fire in their tears. She walked up to me and spoke to me. She adjured me to say that her son was innocent, that I knew it, that I had no right to depose against him. Yes, it was a terrible scene, and the gendarme interrupted it. The unhappy woman! I cannot feel hard toward her. He is her son. What a strange thing that a rascal like him can still have in the world a heart that loves him, even as I loved Charlotte, as I love you! Alas!” continued the old man. “It is one o’clock. The attorney-general is going to speak. Then the defense. Between five and six o’clock we shall have the verdict. Ah, but that will satisfy the heart to see him when the sentence is pronounced! It is only just. He has committed murder. He ought to die.” When the count was again alone, he began to walk up and down, as the evening before, while Pourat with the valet of M. de Jussat, cleared away the table. These two men have since declared that their master had never seemed so violently uneasy, as during the thirty minutes that they were busy in the room. Their astonishment was very great when he asked to have his uniform got ready. In a quarter of an hour he was dressed and left the hotel. One detail made the brave Pourat shiver. He stated that the officer took his revolver with him which had been placed for two nights on the nightstand. The soldier communicated his fears to his companion. “If this Greslon is acquitted,” said he, “the captain is the man to blow his brains out on the spot.” “We ought to follow him, perhaps?” responded the _valet-de-chambre_. While the two servants were deliberating, the count followed the main street which led to the Palais de Justice. He knew it, for he had often been to Riom in his childhood. This old parliamentary city, with its large hotels with the high windows, built in black Volvic stone, seemed more empty, more silent, more dead than usual as the brother of Charlotte walked toward the court. Near the approaches to Palais there was a dense crowd which filled the narrow Rue Saint-Louis by which one reaches the hall of assize. The Greslon case had attracted all who had an hour to spare. André could scarcely force his way through the mass of people, composed of countrymen and small shopkeepers who were conversing with passionate animation.