“Would it be worth while,” he murmured, “to be acquitted on such terms? Would I really be exculpated by such proceedings? Would not my whole life thereafter be disgraced by suspicions? I should not come out from the trial with a clear acquittal: I should have escaped by a mere chance.”
“That would still better than to go, by a clear judgment, to the galleys,” said M. Magloire brutally.
This word, “the galleys,” made Jacques bound. He rose, walked up and down a few times in his room, and then, placing himself in front of his counsel, said,—
“I put myself in your hands, gentlemen. Tell me what I must do.”
Jacques had at least this merit, if he once formed a resolution, he was sure to adhere to it. Calm now, and self-possessed, he sat down, and said, with a melancholy smile,—
“Let us hear the plan of battle.”
This plan had been for a month now the one great thought of M. Folgat. All his intelligence, all his sagacity and knowledge of the world, had been brought to bear upon this case, which he had made his own, so to say, by his almost passionate interest. He knew the tactics of the prosecution as well as M. Galpin himself, and he knew its weak and its strong side even better than M. Galpin.
“We shall go on, therefore,” he began, “as if there was no such person as the Countess Claudieuse. We know nothing of her. We shall say nothing of the meeting at Valpinson, nor of the burned letters.”
“That is settled.”
“That being so, we must next look, not for the manner in which we spent our time, but for our purpose in going out the evening of the crime. Ah! If we could suggest a plausible, a very probable purpose, I should almost guarantee our success; for we need not hesitate to say there is the turning-point of the whole case, on which all the discussions will turn.”