How at a single blow everything about him had fallen in ruins.

Who could have foreseen all this at the time when he was the one hope of a wealthy and illustrious house! Recalling the past, the magistrate pictured to him the most touching reminiscences of his early youth, and stirred up the ashes of all his extinct affections.

Taking advantage of all that he knew of the prisoner's life, he tortured him by the most mournful allusions to Claire.

Why did he persist in bearing alone his great misfortune?
Had he no one in the world who would deem it happiness to share his sufferings?
Why this morose silence?
Should he not rather hasten to reassure her whose very life depended upon his?
What was necessary for that?
A single word.

Then he would be, if not free, at least returned to the world.