The crimson of the setting sun lit up her features, distorted by grief. Behind Charlotte there stood a lady of portly build, with great warts on her hands; yet her face was thin, and her countenance as motionless as that of the dead. She resembled a tree exuberant in strength, whose crown is blighted. Clarissa made a deprecatory gesture, yet she retained a friendly and calm air. A second later, she thought she beheld herself in the kneeling figure, beheld her double; and a cruel triumph filled her heart. "Have no care, my child," said she, smiling, in a low voice; "as far as Bastide is concerned, everything is already settled." Thereupon she opened the gate and walked into the house. Charlotte arose and gazed motionless through the grating. That night Clarissa retired early, but she awoke at four o'clock and began dressing. She selected a black velvet dress, and, as her only ornament, she fastened a diamond star in the edge of it at her bare neck. Her heart beat faster the nearer the hour approached. At eight o'clock the carriage drew up; it was a long drive to Alby, where the Court of Assizes sat. Monsieur Seguret had ridden away early in the morning, nobody knew whither. The walls of the old town had hardly come in sight before such a mass of people was to be seen on the road that the horses were obliged to slacken their pace. They surrounded the carriage and gazed with strained attention into the open windows; women lifted up their children that they, too, might see the famous Madame Mirabel. She did not seek to escape the general curiosity; with the happy smile of a bride she sat there, her fine black brows lifted high on her forehead. On the stroke of ten President Enjalran, who was to preside at the trial, appeared in the overcrowded hall, and after the reading of the lengthy indictment Bastide was summoned to the hearing. Firm as if cast in bronze he stood before the judge's table. His answers were cool, terse, and clear. From beginning to end he now saw through the senseless fable, woven of stupidity and malice. By a biting sarcasm he showed his unutterable contempt of all the accusations against him, thus placing the counsel assigned to him at the last moment, with whom he stubbornly refused to confer, in no slight embarrassment. Now and then he turned his glance toward the tall, church-like windows, and when he caught sight of a bird that had alighted on the sill and dug his yellow bill into the feathers on his breast, he lost his self-command for a moment and his lips parted in pain.