Before the night came and ere that Commission had finished its labours much more had to be done. Based upon such matter as had been extracted from them in the numerous interrogatories to which they had all been subjected since their arrest, each and every one had been examined by the Court, while, with one exception--that of Van den Enden, who had not been believed and who was reserved for something still worse than examination, namely torture--what they had told or refused to tell was considered sufficient for the purposes of the Judges. One of the witnesses, however, had been spared the pain of testifying, since Boisfleury's evidence was considered enough--that one being Humphrey West. "It is true," D'Aligre said to the others seated with him, "that he overheard the plot discussed at Basle. But all that he heard is nothing in comparison with what we now know to have taken place in Brussels, in Normandy, and elsewhere. He has endured enough. We may absolve him from further suffering." "To which has to be added," remarked Laisné de la Marguerie, another of the Judges, a bitter, sarcastic man, "the fact that the young man stands high in the graces of his Majesty and is like to stand still higher ere long." "While," said Quintin de Richebourg, _maître de requêtes_, a kindly hearted lawyer, "he was once a friend of, and befriended by, De Beaurepaire. No need to force him to speak against one who, at least, never harmed him." Therefore, Humphrey was released from what would have been a hateful task and left the Arsenal directly he was informed that such was the case, while the Commission at once proceeded to examine the prisoners, beginning with De Beaurepaire. The answers to the questions put to him were, however, a total denial of any knowledge of the plot. He had never, he said, dreamed of any such conspiracy; he loved the King and always had loved him since they were boys and playmates together. La Truaumont was his factotum and he regretted his death, but while acknowledging that he had employed the man in that capacity, he had never heard him breathe a word of any such a scheme. Had such been the case he would have slain him at his feet. With Van den Enden he had had little correspondence and that only on the subject of raising private loans. No one had the slightest right or justification to use his name in connection with any plot against the King, and Van den Enden and La Truaumont had done so for their own purposes, if they had done so at all.