Deeply affected, M. Arboux then said: "Let us pray! Kneel down, my poor woman!"
He knelt beside me and he prayed: "Oh God, Thou who hast allowed my sister here to lose her reason and do an act of injustice, forgive her, and give her the courage to bear everything, even the awful truth...."
He stopped, and I waited for some dreadful revelation....
The pastor, making a great effort, then added in a broken voice: "Give her the strength to hear... that she is accused of a terrible crime."
"A crime! What crime!..." I seized his hands.... "tell me everything.... I am accused of having..."
"Yes, of having..."
I interrupted him: "Don't say it! Good God!..." And then I said it myself: "They believe I have strangled my mother and my husband...." And I fell forward, rocking and moaning in my grief and horror.
The pastor lifted me on to a chair: "Yes... that is why I came here to-night. I half thought that you might not know, and I thought you would suffer a little less if it were an old pastor who broke the awful news to you.... I have witnessed so much misery."
After a long while, when there were no more tears left to shed, he again tried to comfort me: "Be brave, perhaps the criminals will be found. There will be a thorough, a searching Instruction. The truth will out, sooner or later.... It will be a terrible trial to you, to be in this prison, awaiting the decision of the judges, but you must not lose heart. You must expiate past faults.... Try to forget the brilliant world where you have lived all these years.... Every week I will come to you, and we will pray to Him who has all powers. Believe me: it is not human beings who will give you the courage to remain here and to live, and to hope."
He took the Bible on the desk, placed it in my hands, saying: "Here is the old, old book; it has consoled the worst afflicted. I will see you every week, as often as my other duties will allow."