M. de Boiscoran looked around him like a man who has suddenly been
seized with vertigo, pale, as if all his blood had rushed to his heart.
He saw nothing but mournful, dismayed faces.
Anthony, his old trusted servant, was leaning against the doorpost, as
if he feared to fall. The clerk was mending his pen in the air, overcome
with amazement. M. Daubigeon hung his head.
“This is horrible!” he murmured: “this is horrible!”
He fell heavily into a chair, pressing his hands on his heart, as if to
keep down the sobs that threatened to rise. M. Galpin alone seemed to
remain perfectly cool. The law, which he imagined he was representing in
all its dignity, knows nothing of emotions. His thin lips even trembled
a little, as if a slight smile was about to burst forth: it was the cold
smile of the ambitious man, who thinks he has played his little part
well.
Did not every thing tend to prove that Jacques de Boiscoran was the
guilty man, and that, in the alternative between a friend, and an
opportunity of gaining high distinction, he had chosen well? After the
silence of a minute, which seemed to be a century, he went and stood,
with arms crossed on his chest, before the accused, and asked him,--
“Do you confess?”