justice might be prevented. She therefore kept her mind on the rack with a hundred different schemes, some of which were sufficiently romantic and extravagant, and all were at length set aside as impracticable. The rays of hope became always fainter and fainter, so that she would have given up the point in despair, had it not been that Madelon's boundless and child-like confidence in her protectress, and the rapture with which she spoke of her lover, who would now, as she thought, be pronounced free from every charge against him, kept her sympathy awake, and her attention on the stretch, though, all the while, she felt wounded to the heart by the consciousness of her own inability to realize these expectations.
In order that something, at least, might be tried, de Scuderi wrote a long letter to la Regnie, in which she informed him, that Brusson had, in the most convincing manner, proved to her his innocence of Cardiilac's murder; and that it was only his heroic resolution, of carrying with him to the grave a secret, which, if revealed, might be the cause of grief and despondency to another, who is wholly blameless, that had prevented him, at his trial, from making a confession, such as would at once have freed him from all suspicion. In writing this letter, whatever could be effected by the most zealous eloquence, and ingenious argument, was put in force by de Scuderi, in order to soften the heart of la Regnie; but, after an interval of only half an hour, came his implacable answer, stating that he was very glad to learn that Brusson had justified himself so completely in the opinion of his noble and benevolent protectress; but, as to the young man's heroic resolution, of carrying with him a secret to the grave, he regretted that, in a case of this kind, where a criminal had been regularly committed, he could not approve of such heroism; on the contrary, the Chambre Ardente would doubtless employ the strongest means in their power to break through that obstacle, and in a few days he hoped to be in possession of this terrible secret, which would, no doubt, bring wonders to light.
De Scuderi knew but too well to what means the frightful
