With
the Governor I have influence, for he is, as you know, a kinsman of
my mother's, and of late he has shown a fondness for me. Yet you
can see that I must act most warily, that I must not seem to care
for you, for that would be your complete undoing. I rather seem
to scoff. (Oh, how it hurts me! how my cheeks tingle when I think
of it alone! and how I clench my hands, hating them all for
oppressing you!)
I do not believe their slanders--that you are a spy. It is I,
Robert, who have at last induced the Governor to bring you to
trial. They would have put it off till next year, but I feared you
would die in that awful dungeon, and I was sure that if your trial
came on there would be a change, as there is to be for a time, at
least. You are to be lodged in the common jail during the sitting
of the court; and so that is one step gained. Yet I had to use all
manner of device with the Governor.
He is sometimes so playful with me that I can pretend to
sulkiness; and so one day I said that he showed no regard for our
family or for me in not bringing you, who had nearly killed my
brother, to justice. So he consented, and being of a stubborn
nature, too, when Monsieur Doltaire and the Intendant opposed
the trial, he said it should come off at once. But one thing
grieves me: they are to have you marched through the streets of
the town like any common criminal, and I dare show no distress
nor plead, nor can my father, though he wishes to move for you in
this; and I dare not urge him, for then it would seem strange the
daughter asked your punishment, and the father sought to lessen it.
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