“Is it not the first duty of an innocent man to establish his innocence?”
The prisoner, with a movement of despair, clasped his hands over his brow. Then bending over Dionysia, so that she felt his breath in her hair, he said,—
“And when he cannot, when he cannot, establish his innocence?”
She drew back, pale unto death, tottering so that she had to lean against the wall, and cast upon Jacques de Boiscoran glances in which the whole horror of her soul was clearly expressed.
“What do you say?” she stammered. “O God!”
He laughed, the wretched man! with that laugh which is the last utterance of despair. And then he replied,—
“I say that there are circumstances which upset our reason; unheard-of circumstances, which could make one doubt of one’s self. I say that every thing accuses me, that every thing overwhelms me, that every thing turns against me. I say, that if I were in M. Galpin’s place, and if he were in mine, I should act just as he does.”
“That is insanity!” cried Dionysia.
But Jacques de Boiscoran did not hear her. All the bitterness of the last days rose within him: he turned red, and became excited. At last, with gasping vice, he broke forth,—
“Establish my innocence! Ah! that is easily said. But how? No, I am not guilty: but a crime has been committed; and for this crime justice will have a culprit. If it is not I who fired at Count Claudieuse, and set Valpinson on fire, who is it? ‘Where were you,’ they ask me, ‘at the time of the murder?’ Where was I? Can I tell it? To clear myself is to accuse others. And if I should be mistaken? Or if, not being mistaken, I should be unable to prove the truthfulness of my accusation? The murderer and the incendiary, of course, took all possible precautions to escape detection, and to let the punishment fall upon me. I was warned beforehand. Ah, if we could always foresee, could know beforehand! How can I defend myself? On the first day I said, ‘Such a charge cannot reach me: it is a cloud that a breath will scatter.’ Madman that I was! The cloud has become an avalanche, and I may be crushed. I am neither a child nor a coward; and I have always met phantoms face to face. I have measured the danger, and I know it is fearful.”