He stopped suddenly, and grew confused.  It was easy to guard himself from the peril of looking at Rose, but he could not escape the hard trial to his self-possession of hearing her, if she spoke.  Just as he pronounced the last sentence, she raised her face again from his shoulder, and eagerly whispered to him: 

“No, no, Louis!  Not that sacrifice, after all the others—­not that, though you should force me into speaking to them myself!”

She abruptly quitted her hold of him, and fronted the whole court in an instant.  The railing in front of her shook with the quivering of her arms and hands as she held by it to support herself!  Her hair lay tangled on her shoulders; her face had assumed a strange fixedness; her gentle blue eyes, so soft and tender at all other times, were lit up wildly.  A low hum of murmured curiosity and admiration broke from the women of the audience.  Some rose eagerly from the benches; others cried: 

“Listen, listen! she is going to speak!”

She did speak.  Silvery and pure the sweet voice, sweeter than ever in sadness, stole its way through the gross sounds—­through the coarse humming and the hissing whispers.

“My lord the president,” began the poor girl firmly.  Her next words were drowned in a volley of hisses from the women.

“Ah! aristocrat, aristocrat!  None of your accursed titles here!” was their shrill cry at her.  She fronted that cry, she fronted the fierce gestures which accompanied it, with the steady light still in her eyes, with the strange rigidity still fastened on her face.  She would have spoken again through the uproar and execration, but her brother’s voice overpowered her.

“Citizen president,” he cried, “I have not concluded.  I demand leave to complete my confession.  I implore the tribunal to attach no importance to what my sister says.  The trouble and terror of this day have shaken her intellects.  She is not responsible for her words—­I assert it solemnly, in the face of the whole court!”

The blood flew up into his white face as he made the asseveration.  Even at that supreme moment the great heart of the man reproached him for yielding himself to a deception, though the motive of it was to save his sister’s life.

“Let her speak! let her speak!” exclaimed the women, as Rose, without moving, without looking at her brother, without seeming even to have heard what he said, made a second attempt to address her judges, in spite of Trudaine’s interposition.

“Silence!” shouted the man with the bludgeon.  “Silence, you women! the citizen president is going to speak.”

“The prisoner Trudaine has the ear of the court,” said the president, “and may continue his confession.  If the female prisoner wishes to speak, she may be heard afterward.  I enjoin both the accused persons to make short work of it with their addresses to me, or they will make their case worse instead of better.  I command silence among the audience, and if I am not obeyed, I will clear the hall.  Now, prisoner Trudaine, I invite you to proceed.  No more about your sister; let her speak for herself.  Your business and ours is with the man and woman Dubois.  Are you, or are you not, ready to tell the court who they are?”