“Your ideas are noble, madame,” said Monsieur de Grandville, “but, premeditation apart, Tascheron would still be liable to the penalty of death on account of the other serious and proved circumstances attending the crime,--such as forcible entrance and burglary at night.” “Then you think that he will certainly be found guilty?” she said, lowering her eyelids. “I am certain of it,” he said; “the prosecution has a strong case.” A slight tremor rustled Madame Graslin’s dress. “I feel cold,” she said. Taking her mother’s arm she went to bed. “She seemed quite herself this evening,” said her friends. The next day Veronique was much worse and kept her bed. When her physician expressed surprise at her condition she said, smiling:-- “I told you that that walk would do me no good.” Ever since the opening of the trial Tascheron’s demeanor had been equally devoid of hypocrisy or bravado. Veronique’s physician, intending to divert his patient’s mind, tried to explain this demeanor, which the man’s defenders were making the most of. The prisoner was misled, said the doctor, by the talents of his lawyer, and was sure of acquittal; at times his face expressed a hope that was greater than that of merely escaping death. The antecedents of the man (who was only twenty-three years old) were so at variance with the crime now charged to him that his legal defenders claimed his present bearing to be a proof of innocence; besides, the overwhelming circumstantial proofs of the theory of the prosecution were made to appear so weak by his advocate that the man was buoyed up by the lawyer’s arguments. To save his client’s life the lawyer made the most of the evident want of premeditation; hypothetically he admitted the premeditation of the robbery but not of the murders, which were evidently (no matter who was the guilty party) the result of two unexpected struggles. Success, the doctor said, was really as doubtful for one side as for the other. After this visit of her physician Veronique received that of the _procureur-general_, who was in the habit of coming in every morning on his way to the court-room. “I have read the arguments of yesterday,” she said to him, “and to-day, as I suppose, the evidence for the defence begins. I am so interested in that man that I should like to have him saved. Couldn’t you for once in your life forego a triumph? Let his lawyer beat you. Come, make me a present of the man’s life, and perhaps you shall have mine some day. The able presentation of the defence by Tascheron’s lawyer really raises a strong doubt, and--” “Why, you are quite agitated,” said the viscount somewhat surprised. “Do you know why?” she answered. “My husband has just remarked a most horrible coincidence, which is really enough in the present state of my nerves, to cause my death. If you condemn this man to death it will be on the very day when I shall give birth to my child.” “But I can’t change the laws,” said the lawyer.