and intelligent men, by M. de Chandore, M. Seneschal, Dr. Seignebos, M.
Magloire, and, finally, that advocate whom the Marchioness de Boiscoran
had brought down with her from Paris, M. Folgat.

"And Heaven knows what they would not try," he thought, "to rescue the
guilty man from the hands of justice!"

It may well be said, therefore, that never was prosecution carried on
with as much passionate zeal or as much minute assiduity. Every one of
the points upon which the prosecution relied became, for M. Galpin,
a subject of special study. In less than a fortnight he examined
sixty-seven witnesses in his office. He summoned the fourth part of the
population of Brechy. He would have summoned the whole country, if he
had dared.

But all his efforts were fruitless. After weeks of furious
investigations, the inquiry was still at the same point, the mystery was
still impenetrable. The prisoner had not refuted any of the charges
made against him; but the magistrate had, also, not obtained a single
additional piece of evidence after those he had secured on the first
day.

There must be an end of this, however.

One warm afternoon in July, the good ladies in National Street thought
they noticed that M. Galpin looked even more anxious than usual. They
were right. After a long conference with the commonwealth attorney
and the presiding judge, the magistrate had made up his mind. When he
reached the prison, he went to Jacques's cell and there, concealing his
embarrassment under the greatest stiffness, he said,--