"But first I desire to say one word in reference to my sister, charged here at the bar with me." His voice grew less steady, and, for the first time, his color began to change, as Rose lifted her face from his shoulder and looked up at him eagerly.
"I implore the tribunal to consider my sister as innocent of all active participation in what is charged against me as a crime--" He went on.

"Having spoken with candor about myself, I have some claim to be believed when I speak of her; when I assert that she neither did help me nor could help me.

If there be blame, it is mine only; if punishment, it is I alone who should suffer." 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.