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Three months had passed since the head and body of Peter Leroux had been cast into a corner of the cemetery, and, in all probability, the grave no longer concealed aught but his bones, when a new session of assizes was opened, and M. Desalleux had again to support a capital indictment.
Overcome by a sensation of terror, M. Desalleux fainted. That morning, at daybreak, he was found stretched out insensible on the floor near a little pool of blood, which was also found in spots upon his desk, and on the leaves of his pleadings. It was supposed, and he took care never to contradict it, that he had been seized with a hemorrhage.
His system of indictment was nearly completed, when the deposition of a witness which he had not examined, suddenly presented itself, with such an aspect as threatened to overturn all the edifice of his logic. He hesitated for some moments; but, as we have already seen, M. Desalleux, in his functions of deputy-prosecutor, consulted his vanity at least as often as his conscience.
Orleans had not, for a long time, seen a prettier bride than that of M. Desalleux; nor a family more happy than that of M. Desalleux; nor a wedding-ball so joyous and brilliant as that of M. Desalleux. That night he thought no more of his ambition; he lived only in the present. According to French custom, the guests remained until a late hour.
M. Desalleux, smiling, replied with some affectionate phrases. Most assuredly in that moment he was not thinking of poor Peter Leroux. At the moment of closing the door of the chamber, the bride was already abed. He remarked, what appeared to him strange, that the curtains of her bed were drawn. The room was quite silent.
It was growing lighter; and in the hope of dispelling the odious enchantments with which he was surrounded, M. Desalleux went to the window, and drew aside the blinds and curtains to let in the new day. Then the unhappy lawyer perceived for the first time why the blood refused to be dried up.
M. Desalleux, sitting in his official place, demanded, upon evidence somewhat insufficient, the head of Peter Leroux, accused of murder; and Peter Leroux defended his head against the eloquence of M. Desalleux.
M. Desalleux thought of a wife, and no man was more in a position than he to secure a good match; for, without speaking of personal advantages, the fame of his oratorical successes, and perhaps, more still, the little anxiety which he displayed for any other kind of success, had rendered him the object of more than one lady's ambition.
Powerfully reassured by this consultation, and as no accident happened to contradict its correctness, M. Desalleux by degrees regained his serenity of mind, and gradually returned to his former habits modifying them simply insomuch that he laboured with an application somewhat less severe, and indulged, at the doctor's suggestion, in some of those amusements of life which he had hitherto totally neglected.
You would have seen, in the midst of a crowd of 'elegantly-attired members of the fair sex, as the newspapers of the province said, the sister of M. Desalleux, receiving the compliments of all the ladies around her; while, at a little distance, the old father was weeping with joy at the sight of the noble son and incomparable orator whom he had given to the world.
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