“Oh, no, father. I came away. Tell me every thing. See, I’m still trembling.”
“You mustn’t tremble, Margaret. Be brave.”
At table, while he ate his lunch rapidly, but with no appetite, he went over the arguments for her.
“You didn’t understand very much, no doubt,” he said, “about the selection of the jury, the administering of the oath to them, the challenging, and the calling of the witnesses.”
“I was near you in the hall, father. When I heard my name I rose, and they led me into a room, where I found Uncle Stephen and Aunt Thérèse.”
“The room where the witnesses wait,” said her father. “Then the depositions began, after the reading of the bill of accusations and the written report made by the police commissioner, stating the theft of one hundred thousand francs. Then came the examination of Maurice. He declared his innocence, but all the time refused to accuse any one else, in spite of the president’s insistence. Of the witnesses for the prosecution, the chief clerk at the Frasne office was the most obstinate against us. He’s the one named Philippeaux, who must hate us, I don’t know why. He testified with a perfect mania for denouncing and compromising Maurice. He tried to make incontrovertible proofs out of presumptions which he inverted and perverted wickedly.”
“What presumptions, father?”
“Knowledge of the deposit of money in the safe, the possible, though not proven, discovery of the combination in a note-book, Maurice’s staying late in the office with the keys the evening of the theft, his lack of personal resources, his departure for foreign territory, the impossibility of imagining any other criminal, et cetera. The other clerks repeated his testimony like well-learned lessons, though with less details and certainty. Finally Mrs. Frasne’s former maid, whom they must have cajoled in some way, pretended that, in her master’s absence, her mistress never went into the offices. What does that prove? Would Mrs. Frasne have called in her maids to help her embezzle? But I mustn’t accuse her myself, either.”
“And yet Maurice is no longer opposed to your doing so, father.”
“I won’t do it, though. We have paid her ransom. Let her keep it and never come back again. I had called as witnesses for the defence, besides yourself, your great-uncle Stephen and my sister-in-law Thérèse to establish the fact that Maurice had not gone away without funds; also the employee of the Society of Credit, the one who made out for you, some time last October, the draft for eight thousand francs on the International Bank of Milan to Maurice’s order; finally Mr. Doudain, the notary.”