crime, I replied that I was not even the unwilling author of the
accident. In brief answers I gave some details of the events immediately
preceding it; but, feeling that I owed it to Edmee as much as to myself
to be silent about the tumultuous impulses that had stirred me, I
explained the scene which had resulted in my quitting her, as being due
to a fall from my horse; and that I had been found some distance from
her body was, I said, because I had deemed it advisable to run after my
horse, so that I might again escort her. Unfortunately all this was not
very clear, and, naturally, could not be. My horse had gone off in the
direction opposite to that which I said; and the bewildered state
in which I had been found before I knew of the accident, was not
sufficiently explained by a fall from my horse. They questioned me
especially about the gallop I had had with my cousin through the wood,
instead of following the hunt as we had intended; they would not believe
that we had gone astray, guided altogether by chance. It was impossible,
they said, to look upon chance as a reasonable being, armed with a gun,
waiting for Edmee at Gazeau Tower at an appointed time, in order to
shoot her the moment I turned my back for five minutes. They pretended
that I must have taken her to this out-of-the-way spot either by craft
or force to outrage her; and that I had tried to kill her either from
rage at not succeeding, or from fear of being discovered and punished
for my crime.

Then all the witnesses for and against me were heard. It is true
that among the former Marcasse was the only one who could really be
considered as a witness for the defence. The rest merely affirmed that
a "monk bearing a resemblance to the Mauprats" had been roaming about
Varenne at the period in question, and that he had even appeared to hide
himself on the evening of the event. Since then he had not been seen.
These depositions, which I had not solicited, and which I declared had