Clinging to their chairs these unfortunate parents, finding their sons torn from them after so many fears and their late hopes of safety, sat gazing before them without seeing, listening without hearing.
"Must I ask you to bail me, Monsieur d'Hauteserre ?" cried Laurence to her former guardian, who was roused by the cry, clear and agonizing to his ear as the sound of the last trumpet.
He tried to wipe the tears which sprang to his eyes; he now understood what was passing, and said to his young relation in a quivering voice, "Forgive me, countess; you know that I am yours, body and soul." Lechesneau, who at first was much struck by the evident tranquillity in which the whole party were dining, now returned to his former opinion of their guilt as he noticed the stupefaction of the old people and the evident anxiety of Laurence, who was seeking to discover the nature of the trap which was set for them.
"Gentlemen," he said, politely, "you are too well-bred to make a useless resistance; follow me to the stables, where I must, in your presence, have the shoes of your horses taken off; they afford important proof of either guilt or innocence.

Come, too, mademoiselle." The blacksmith of Cinq-Cygne and his assistant had been summoned by Lechesneau as experts.

While the operation at the stable was going on the justice of peace brought in Gothard and Michu.

The work of detaching the shoes of each horse, putting them together and ticketing them, so as to compare them with the hoof-prints in the park, took time.

Lechesneau, notified of the arrival of Pigoult, left the prisoners with the gendarmes and returned to the dining-room to dictate the indictment.
The justice of peace called his attention to the condition of Michu's clothes and related the circumstances of his arrest.
"They must have killed the senator and plastered the body up in some wall," said Pigoult.
"I begin to fear it," answered Lechesneau.