"I have nothing to confess; I am perfectly innocent. I was the poor
man's friend, not his murderer. I tried hard to save him, but,
unhappily, I was too late."

"You will not confess?"

A flush of anger rose to Gascoigne's cheek; his eyes flashed with the
indignation he felt at being thus bullied and browbeaten; his lips
quivered, but still he made no reply.

"Come! you have played this comedy long enough," said the judge, his
manner growing more insolent, his look more threatening. "Will you, or
will you not, confess?"

Gascoigne met his gaze resolutely, but with a dogged, obstinate
silence, the result of a firm determination not to utter a word.

"This is unbearable," said the judge, angrily, after having repeated
his question several times without eliciting any reply. "Take him
away! Let him be kept in complete isolation, in one of the separate
cells of the Mousetrap--the Souricière."

At a signal from within the police entered, resumed charge of the
prisoner, and escorted him, by many winding passages, down a steep
staircase to an underground passage, ending in a dungeon-like room,
badly lighted by one small, heavily-barred window, through which no
glimpse of the sky was seen.

Here he was left alone, and for a long time utterly neglected. No one