This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By HECTOR MALOT
As he did not reply to this cry of triumph, she looked at him insurprise. saw his face, pale, agitated, under the shock evidently of aviolent emotion that she could not explain to herself.
"What is the matter?" she asked, with uneasiness.
"Nothing," he answered, almost brutally.
"You do not wish to weaken my hope?" she said, not imagining that hecould not think of this hope and of Florentin. This was a path to leadhim out of his confusion. In following it he would have time to recoverhimself.
"It is true," he said.
"You do not think that what Madame Dammauville saw proves Florentin'sinnocence?"
"Would what may be a proof for Madame Dammauville, for you, and for me,be one in the eyes of the law?"
"However—"
"I saw you so joyful that I did not dare to interrupt you."
"Then you believe that this testimony is without value," she murmured,feeling crushed.
"I do not say that. We must reflect, weigh the pro and con, compass thesituation from divers points of view; that is what I try to do, which isthe cause of my preoccupation that astonishes you."
"Say that it crushes me; I let myself be carried away."
"You need not be crushed or carried away. Certainly, what this lady toldyou forms a considerable piece of work."
"Does it not?"
"Without any doubt. But in order that the testimony she gives may be ofgreat consequence, the witness must be worthy of trust."
"Do you believe this lady could have invented such a story?"
"I do not say that; but before all, it is necessary to know who she is."
"The widow of an attorney."
"The widow of an attorney and landowner. Evidently this constitutes asocial status that merits consideration from the law; but the moralstate, what is it? You say that she is paralyzed?"
"She has been so a little more than a year."
"Of what paralysis? That is a vague word for us others. There areparalyses that affect the sight; others that affect the mind. Is it oneof these with which this lady is afflicted, or one of the others, whichpermitted her really to see, the evening of the assassination, that whichshe relates, and which leaves her mental faculties in a sane condition?Before everything, it is important to know this."
Phillis was prostrated.
"I had not thought of all that," she murmured.
"It is very natural that you had not; but I am a doctor, and while youtalked it was the doctor who listened."
"It is true, it is true," she repeated. "I only saw Florentin."
"In your place I should have seen, like you, only my brother, and Ishould have been carried away by hope. But I am not in your place. Itis by your voice that this woman speaks, whom I do not know, and againstwhom I must be on my guard, for the sole reason that it is a paralyticwho has told this story."
She could not restrain the tears that cam