He must have been thinking of that perusal ever since he had been in prison.

It was the decisive act of his suicide, the act by which he proclaimed that he gave his life for the glory of dying in the cause of mankind.

And when he had finished he sat down between the gendarmes with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks, as if he inwardly experienced some deep joy.
To destroy the effect which the declaration had produced--a commingling of fear and compassion--the judge at once wished to proceed with the hearing of the witnesses.

Of these there was an interminable procession; though little interest attached to their evidence, for none of them had any revelations to make.

Most attention perhaps was paid to the measured statements of Grandidier, who had been obliged to dismiss Salvat from his employ on account of the Anarchist propaganda he had carried on.