"O, yes! there is some serious mistake
here," chimed in several voices.

"That may be," replied the gendarme;
"but that is not our business. Our business
is to obey orders. So, as we cannot stay
here discussing any longer, you must both
come along with us immediately."

In, the meantime the whole bridal procession
and a mob of villagers had crowded
round the gendarmes and their prisoners.
Foremost in their midst stood the bride,
anxiously inquiring what it all meant. When
aware of the fearful reality, her face became
almost as white as her dress, and she
clutched a firmer hold of her father's arm.
As Jules turned towards her, he saw at a
glance all he wished to know. Louise was
confident of his innocence.

The police agents, wishing to avoid a scene,
tried to hurry their prisoners away, while
their friends and relatives crowded around
them, each one being louder than the other in
expressions of surprise and lamentation. As
for Madame Delorme, she offered to go to
prison with her husband and son, and was
only pacified by her husband observing that
she would be of more use out of the prison
than in it.

When Jules asked and obtained the
consent of the gendarmes to his going by himself
to say farewell to his bride, she was standing
a little apart from the rest of the bridal
procession, waiting for the excitement to subside.
On approaching her, Jules said in a low
voice, taking her hand in his:

"Louise, this is a dreadful charge which is
brought against us; but, if there is any justice
in our country, I shall soon be able to prove
my innocence. Therefore do not despair, and
everything will speedily come right again."

"I am not afraid, Jules, for I know you
are innocent."

"Farewell, then! I shall go to prison less
unhappy."

Jules would have lingered longer, but the
gendarmes were calling to him to come
quickly. So, hastily pressing the hand of his
bride, he tore himself away from her, and
delivered himself into custody.

"Good-bye, my friends," he said, with a
forced smile. "This is merely some error
which will soon be put right. Let us hope
we shall soon meet again."

''Yes; we shall soon meet again!" they
all shouted in chorus, as Jules and his father,
conducted by the police agents, moved across
the open Place towards the Mairie. The crowd
waited until the prisoners had disappeared
inside the gates of the town hall; and then
all the people returned sadly to their respective
homes.

That night, Jean and Jules Delorme, after
undergoing a private examination by the
police officials at Bazeille, were transferred,
handcuffed to each other, first to the prison
of La Reolle, and in a few days to the prisons
of Bordeaux.

III

ALL preliminary legal proceedings in
France being kept secret, the public heard no
more of the murder of Eugène Gay until the
trial of Jules Delorme and his accomplice
Jean Delorme, was announced to take place
upon the twenty-first of September, in the
Palace of Justice at Bordeaux.

Upon the appointed day, and long before
the appointed hour, an immense concourse of
persons were assembled outside the Hall of
Justice, awaiting the opening of the doors.
Among them were many of the
inhabitants of the villages of Bazeille and La
Motte Landron, but none of the nearest
relatives of the two accused men. At ten
o'clock the doors were thrown open, and in a
few minutes the space allotted to the public
in the court was crowded to suffocation. At
a quarter past ten o'clock, the prisoners were
brought in by six gendarmes, with death-like
silence. One of the law journals published a
pen and ink portrait of the accused, from
which we extract the following: "The
principal accused, Jules Delorme, came first. He
is a tall, thin, intelligent-looking young man,
about twenty-six years of age. His face is
oval, his complexion is dark, and his hair and
whiskers are black. His appearance is
altogether calculated to prepossess a stranger, who
might not be aware of the twofold crime he
is accused of. Indeed, the only true signs of
the great criminal, which he allowed to show
themselves during the trial, were the nervous
twitchings of his mouth, and the sudden
flashes of fury which he darted from his fiery
black eyes, as the witnesses proceeded with
their evidence. Jean Delorme, his accomplice
and father, is a military-looking man, of
about sixty years of age. Both prisoners
were respectably dressed in black; and were
accompanied by their advocate, Monsieur
Edouard de la Tour."

At half-past , ten o'clock, the president
and the court having taken their seats, the
jury was sworn, and the proceedings
commenced by the reading of the act of accusation
by the chief clerk. This document, after
describing the discovery of the fire and the
murder, detailed the circumstances which
proved (as it said) the guilt of the two
prisoners: In the first place, Jules Delorme
had bought, some six months before, a house
and bit of land from Eugène Gay, arranging
to pay an annuity of twelve pounds, during
the life-time of the old man. Of course the
motives of the murder were thus laid
bare. In the second place, Jules confessed
to having passed close to Gay's farm an
hour or so before the fire broke out.
Besides, the two prisoners were the first
persons who knew of the fire, and who gave the
alarm. Moreover, careful investigations
had been made by the police, and it was
found that nobody had seen any strangers in
the vicinity that evening. The prisoners