“He would have been admitted in three or four years and then perhaps have taken a position in a lyceum at Clermont. I should have had him marry. I have seen a good _parti_ for him. I should have remained with him, in some corner, to take care of his children. Ah! monsieur!” and she sought in the philosopher’s eyes, a response in harmony with her passionate desire; “tell me, if it is possible for a son who had such ideas to do what they say he has done? It is infamous; is it not infamous, monsieur?” “Be calm, madame, be calm.” These were the only words which Adrien Sixte could find to say to this mother who wept over the ruin of her most cherished hopes. Beside, being still under the impression of his conversation with the judge, she seemed to him to be so wildly beyond the truth, a prey to illusions so blind that he was stupefied, and also, why not confess it? the renewed prospect of the journey to Riom frightened him as much as the grief of the mother affected him. These different impressions showed themselves in his manner by an uncertainty, an absence of warmth which did not deceive the mother. Extreme suffering has infallible intuitions of instinct. This woman understood that the philosopher did not believe in the innocence of her son, and with a gesture of extreme depression, recoiling from him with horror, she moaned: “Monsieur, you too, you are with his enemies. You--you?” “No, madame, no,” gently responded Adrien Sixte, “I am not an enemy. I ask nothing better than to believe what you believe. But you will permit me to speak frankly? Facts are facts, and they are terribly against him. The poison bought clandestinely, the bottle thrown out of the window, the other bottle half emptied then refilled with water, the going out of the girl’s room on the night of her death; the false dispatch, his sudden departure, those burned letters, and then his denial of it all.” “But, monsieur, there is no proof in all that,” interrupted the mother, “no proof at all. What of his sudden departure? He had been wishing for more than a month to get away from the place, I have a letter in which he speaks of his plan, and beside his engagement was almost at an end. He fancied that they wished to retain him and he was tired of the life of a tutor, and then, as he is so timid, he gave a false pretext and invented this unfortunate dispatch that is all. And as to the poison he did not buy it secretly. He has suffered for years from a stomach trouble. He has studied too hard immediately after his meals. Who saw him go out of that room? A servant! What if the real murderer paid this servant to accuse my son? Do we know anything about this girl’s intrigues and who were interested in killing her?”