Mauprat
half. In the evening he would come and throw himself on a bundle of straw at the foot of my truckle bed, and, after giving me news of Edmée and the chevalier, whom he went to see every day, he would tell me the result of his proceedings. I used to grasp his hand affectionately; but I was generally so absorbed by the news he had just given me of Edmée, that I never heard anything further.
This prison of La Châtre had formerly been the stronghold of the Elevains of Lombaud, the seigneurs of the province. Nothing was left of it but a formidable square tower, blackened by the centuries, and planted on a rock at the top of a ravine where the Indre forms a narrow, winding valley, rich with the most beautiful vegetation. The weather was magnificent. My room, situated at the top of the tower, received the rays of the rising sun, which cast the long, thin shadows of a triple row of poplars as far as the eye could see. Never did landscape more smiling, fresh, and pastoral offer itself to the eyes of a prisoner. But how could I find pleasure in it? Words of death and contumely came to me in every breeze that blew through the wall-flowers growing in the crannies. Every rustic sound, every tune on the pipe that rose to my room, seemed to contain an insult or to proclaim profound contempt for my sorrow. There was nothing, even to the bleating of the flocks, which did not appear to me an expression of neglect or indifference.
For some time Marcasse had had one fixed idea, namely, that Edmée had been shot by John Mauprat. It was possible; but as there was no evidence to support the conjecture, I at once ordered him not to make known his suspicions. It was not for me to clear myself at the
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