'"
Some time afterwards, the old man recovered and seemed to take a new
lease of life; but in the midst of his convalescence he took to his
bed one morning and died suddenly. There were such evident symptoms of
poisoning in the condition of the dead man that the officers of
justice were appealed to, and the two lovers were arrested. Then was
enacted at the court of assizes the most heartrending scene that ever
stirred the emotions of the jury. At the preliminary examination, each
of the two lovers without hesitation confessed to the crime, and with
one thought each of them was solely bent on saving, the one her lover,
the other his mistress. There were two found guilty, where justice was
looking for but a single culprit. The trial was entirely taken up with
the flat contradictions which each of them, carried away by the fury
of devoted love, gave to the admissions of the other. There they were
united for the first time, but on the criminals' bench with a gendarme
seated between them. They were found guilty by the unanimous verdict
of a weeping jury. No one among those who had the barbarous courage to
witness their conveyance to the scaffold can mention them to-day
without a shudder. Religion had won for them a repentance for their
crime, but could not induce them to abjure their love.
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