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CHAPTER III.
END OF THE CROWN WHICH WAS TURNED INTO A DRY LEAF.
When she re-entered the audience hall, pale and limping, she was received with a general murmur of pleasure. On the part of the audience there was the feeling of impatience gratified which one experiences at the theatre at the end of the last entr'acte of the comedy, when the curtain rises and the conclusion is about to begin. On the part of the judges, it was the hope of getting their suppers sooner.
The little goat also bleated with joy. He tried to run towards his mistress, but they had tied him to the bench.
Night was fully set in. The candles, whose number had not been increased, cast so little light, that the walls of the hall could not be seen. The shadows there enveloped all objects in a sort of mist. A few apathetic faces of judges alone could be dimly discerned. Opposite them, at the extremity of the long hall, they could see a vaguely white point standing out against the sombre background. This was the accused.
She had dragged herself to her place. When Charmolue had installed himself in a magisterial manner in his own, he seated himself, then rose and said, without exhibiting too much self-complacency at his success,—"The accused has confessed all."
"Bohemian girl," the president continued, "have you avowed all your deeds of magic, prostitution, and assassination on Phœbus de Châteaupers."
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