“We must go, sir. Come, come! You need not despair. You need not lose courage. All is not over yet. There is still the appeal for you, and then the petition for pardon, not to speak of what may happen, and cannot be foreseen.” M. Folgat was allowed to accompany the prisoner, and was getting ready to do so; but the latter said, with a pained voice,-- “No, my friend, please leave me alone. Others have more need of your presence than I have. Dionysia, my poor father, my mother. Go to them. Tell them that the horror of my condemnation lies in the thought of them. May they forgive me for the affliction which I cause them, and for the disgrace of having me for their son, for her betrothed!” Then, pressing the hands of his counsel, he added,-- “And you, my friends, how shall I ever express to you my gratitude? Ah! if incomparable talents, and matchless zeal and ability, had sufficed, I know I should be free. But instead of that”--he pointed at the little door through which he was to pass, and said in a heartrending tone,-- “Instead of that, there is the door to the galleys. Henceforth”-- A sob cut short his words. His strength was exhausted; for if there are, so to say, no limits to the power of endurance of the spirit, the energy of the body has its bounds. Refusing the arm which the sergeant offered him, he rushed out of the room. M. Magloire was well-nigh beside himself with grief. “Ah! why could we not save him?” he said to his young colleague. “Let them come and speak to me again of the power of conviction. But we must not stay here: let us go!” They threw themselves into the crowd, which was slowly dispersing, all palpitating yet with the excitement of the day. A strange reaction was already beginning to set in,--a reaction perfectly illogic, and yet intelligible, and by no means rare under similar circumstances. Jacques de Boiscoran, an object of general execration as long as he was only suspected, regained the sympathy of all the moment he was condemned. It was as if the fatal sentence had wiped out the horror of the crime. He was pitied; his fate was deplored; and as they thought of his family, his mother, and his betrothed, they almost cursed the severity of the judges. Besides, even the least observant among those present had been struck by the singular course which the proceedings had taken. There was not one, probably, in that vast assembly who did not feel that there was a mysterious and unexplored side of the case, which neither the prosecution nor the defence had chosen to approach. Why had Cocoleu been mentioned only once, and then quite incidentally? He was an idiot, to be sure; but it was nevertheless through his evidence alone that suspicions had been aroused against M. de Boiscoran. Why had he not been summoned either by the prosecution or by the defence? The evidence given by Count Claudieuse, also, although apparently so conclusive at the moment, was now severely criticised. The most indulgent said,--