place, in order to keep his loyalty to her.

From this suggestion there grew up in the minds of the profound
politicians who played their whist at the hotel Graslin a belief that
the viscount and the young wife had based certain hopes on the
ill-health of the banker which were now frustrated. The great
agitations which marked this period of Veronique's life, the anxieties
which a first childbirth causes in every woman, and which, it is said,
threatens special danger when she is past her first youth, made her
friends more attentive than ever to her; they vied with each other in
showing her those little kindnesses which proved how warm and solid
their affection really was.



V

TASCHERON

It was in this year that Limoges witnessed a terrible event and the
singular drama of the Tascheron trial, in which the young Vicomte de
Grandville displayed the talents which afterwards made him
_procureur-general_.

An old man living in a lonely house in the suburb of Saint-Etienne was
murdered. A large fruit-garden lay between the road and the house,
which was also separated from the adjoining fields by a pleasure-garden,
at the farther end of which were several old and disused greenhouses.
In front of the house a rapid slope to the river bank gave a view of
the Vienne. The courtyard, which also sloped downward, ended at a