It happened that certain persons had selected this evening as a suitable occasion for a friendly visit to the House of White Shadows; Jacob Hartrich, the banker, was one of these. The banker was accompanied by his wife, a handsome and dignified woman, and by his two daughters, whose personal attractions, enhanced by their father's wealth and their consequent expectations, would have created a sensation in fashionable circles. Although in his religious observances Jacob Hartrich was by no means orthodox, he did not consider himself less a true Jew on that account. It is recognised by the most intelligent and liberal-minded of his race in the civilised countries of the world that the carrying-out of the Mosaic law in its integrity would not only debar them from social relations, but would check their social advancement. It is a consequence of the recognition of this undoubted fact that the severe ordinances of the Jewish religion should become relaxed in their fulfilment. Jacob Hartrich was a member of this band of reformers, and though his conscience occasionally gave him a twinge, he was none the less devoted, in a curiously jealous and illogical spirit, to the faith of his forefathers, to which he clung with the greater tenacity because his daily habits compelled him to act, to some extent, in antagonism with the decrees they had laid down.

Master Pierre Lamont was also at the villa. His bodily ailments were more severe than usual, and the jolting over the rough roads, as he was drawn from his house in his hand-carriage, had caused him excruciating suffering. He bore it with grins and grimaces, scorning to give pain an open triumph over him. Fritz was not by his side to amuse him with his humour; the Fool was at the court, on this last day of Gautran's trial, as he had been on every previous day, hastening thence every evening to Pierre Lamont, to give him an account of the day's proceedings.

Father Capel was there--a simple and learned ecclesiastic, with a smile and a pleasant greeting for old and young, for rich and poor alike. A benevolent, sweet-natured man, who, when trouble came to his door, received it with cheerful resignation; universally beloved; a man whose course through life was strewn with flowers of charity and kindness.

The visit of these and other guests was unexpected by Adelaide, and she inwardly resented the interruption to a contemplated quiet evening with Christian Almer; but outwardly she was all affability.

The principal topic of conversation was the trial of Gautran, and Pierre Lamont was enthusiastic on the theme.

"The trial will end this evening," he said, "and intellect will triumph."

"Truth, I trust, will triumph," said Jacob Hartrich, gravely.

"Intellect is truth's best champion," said Pierre Lamont. "But some mortals believe themselves to be omniscient, and set up a standard of truth which is independent of proof. I understood that you were to have been on the jury at the trial."

"I was excused," said Jacob Hartrich, "on the ground that I had already formed so strong a view of the guilt of the prisoner that no testimony could affect it."

"Decidedly," observed Pierre Lamont, "an unfit frame of mind to take part in a judicial inquiry of great difficulty. For my own part, I would willingly have given a year of my life, which cannot have too many years to run, to have been able to be in Geneva these last few days. It will be long before another trial so celebrated will take place in our courts."

"I am happy to think so."

"It has always been a puzzle to me," said Adelaide, whose feelings towards Pierre Lamont were of the most contradictory character--now inclining her to be exceedingly partial to him, now to detest him--"how such vulgar cases can excite the interest they do."

"It is surprising," was Pierre Lamont's comment, "that the wife of an Advocate so celebrated should express such an opinion."

"There are stranger things than that in the world, Master Lamont."

"Truly, truly," said Pierre Lamont, regarding her with curiosity; "but cannot you understand how even these vulgar cases become, at least for a time, great and grand when the highest qualities of the mind are engaged in unravelling the threads which bind them?"

"No, I cannot understand it," she replied with an amiable smile. "I believe that you lawyers are only happy when people are murdering and robbing each other."

"My friend the Advocate," said Pierre Lamont, bending gallantly, an exertion which sent a twinge of pain through his body, "is at least happy in one other respect--that of being the husband of a lady whom none can see without admiring--if I were a younger man I should say without loving."

"Pierre Lamont," said Jacob Hartrich, "gives us here a proof that love and law can go hand in hand."

"Nay," said Pierre Lamont, whose eyes and mind were industriously studying the face of his beautiful hostess, "such proof from me is not needed. The Advocate has supplied it, and words cannot strengthen the case."

And he waved his hand courteously towards Adelaide.

These compliments were not wasted upon her, and Pierre Lamont laughed secretly as he observed their effect.

"You are worth studying, fair dame," he thought, "with your smiling face, and your heart of vanity, and your lack of sympathy with your husband's triumphs. If not with his triumphs, then not with him! Feeling you must have, though it is born of selfishness. Ah! the curtain is drawn aside. Which one, which one, you beautiful animal?" His eyes travelled from one to the other in the room, until they fell upon Christian Almer, whose eyes at that moment met those of Adelaide. "Ah!" and he drew a deep breath of enjoyment. "Are you the favoured one, my master of this House of Shadows! Then we must take you into the game, for it cannot be played without you."

The old lawyer was in his element, probing character and motive, and submitting them to mental analysis. Physically he was helpless amidst the animated life around him; curled up in his invalid chair he was dependent for every movement upon his fellow-creatures; despite his intellect, he was at the mercy of a hind; but he was nevertheless the strongest man in all that throng, the man most to be feared by those who had anything to conceal, any secret which it behoved them to hide from the knowledge of men.

"How such vulgar cases," he said aloud, to the astonishment of the Advocate's wife, who deemed the subject dismissed, "can excite the interest they do! It surprises you. But there is not one of these cases which does not contain elements of human sympathy and affinity with ourselves. This very case of Gautran--what is its leading feature? Love--the theme of minstrel and poet, the sentiment without which human and divine affairs would be plunged into darkness. Crimes for which Gautran is being tried are caused by the human passions and emotions which direct our own movements. The balance in our favour is so heavy when our desires and wishes clash with the desires and wishes of other men, that we easily find justification for our misdeeds. Father Capel is listening to me with more than ordinary attention. He perceives the justice of my argument."

"We travel by different roads," said Father Capel. "You do not take into account the prompting of evil spirits, ever on the alert to promote discord and instigate to crime. It is that consideration which makes me tolerant of human error, which makes me pity it, which makes me forgive it."

"I dispute your spiritual basis. All motive for crime springs from within ourselves."

"Nay, nay," gently remonstrated Father Capel.

"Pardon me for restraining you. I was about to say that not only does all motive for human crime spring from within ourselves, but all motive for human goodness as well. If your thesis that evil spirits prompt us to crime is correct, it must be equally correct that good spirits prompt us to deeds of mercy, and charity, and kindness. Then there is no merit in performing a good action. You rob life of its grace, and you virtually declare that it is an injustice to punish a man for murdering his fellow-creature. Plainly stated, you establish the doctrine of irresponsibility. I will not do you the injustice of believing that you are in earnest. Your tolerance of human error, and your pity and forgiveness for it, spring from natural kindliness, as my tolerance of it, and my lack of pity and forgiveness for it, spring from a natural hardness of heart, begot of much study of the weakness, perverseness, and selfishness of my species. In the rank soil of these imperfections grows that wondrous, necessary tree known by the name of Law, whose wide-spreading branches at once smite and protect. You may thank this tree for preserving to some extent the decencies of society."

"Well expressed, Pierre Lamont," said Jacob Hartrich approvingly. "I regret that the Advocate is not present to listen to your eloquence."

"Ah," said Pierre Lamont, with a scarcely perceptible sneer, "does your endorsement spring from judgment or self-interest?"

"You strike both friend and foe," said Father Capel, with much gentleness. "It is as dangerous to agree with you as to dissent from you. But in your extravagant laudation of the profession of which you are a representative you lose sight of a mightier engine than Law, towering far above it in usefulness, and as a protection, no less than a solace to mankind. Without Religion, Law would be powerless, and the world a world of wild beasts. It softens, humanizes----"

"Invents," sneered Pierre Lamont, with undisguised contempt, "fables which sober reason rejects."

"If you will have it so, yes. Fables to divert men's minds from sordid materialism into purer channels. Be thankful for Religion if you practise it not. In the Sabbath's holy peace, in the hush and calm of one day out of the turbulent seven, in the influences which touch you closely, though you do not acknowledge them, in the restraint imposed by fear, in the charitable feelings inspired by love, in the unseen spirit which softens and subdues, in the yearning hope which chastens grief when one dear to you is lost, lie the safeguard of your days and much of the happiness you enjoy. So much for your body. For your soul, I will pray to-night."

"Father Capel," said Pierre Lamont in a voice of honey, "if all priests were like you, I would wear a hair-shirt to-morrow."

"What need, my son," asked Father Capel, "if you have a conscience?"

"Let me pay for my sins," said Pierre Lamont, handing his purse to the priest.

Father Capel took a few francs from the purse. "For the poor," he said. "In their name I bless you!"

"The priest has the best of it," said Adelaide to Christian Almer. "I hate these dry arguments! It is altogether too bad that I should be called upon to entertain a set of musty old men. How much happier we should be, we two alone, even in the mountains where you have been hiding yourself from me!"

"You are in better health and spirits," said Jacob Hartrich, drawing Almer aside, "than when I last saw you. The mountain air has done you good. It is strange to see you in the old house; I thought it would never be opened again to receive guests."

"It is many years since we were together under this roof," said Christian Almer thoughtfully.

"You were so young at the time," rejoined the banker, "that you can scarcely have a remembrance of it."

"My remembrance is very keen. I could have been scarcely six years of age, and we had no visitors. I remember that my curiosity was excited because you were admitted."

"I came on business," said Jacob Hartrich, and then, unwilling to revive the sad reminiscences of the young man's childhood, he said abruptly: "Almer, you should marry." His eyes wandered to his two comely daughters.

"What is that you are saying?" interposed the Advocate's wife; "that Mr. Almer should marry? If I were a man--how I wish I were!--nothing, nothing in the world would tempt me to marry. I would live a life without chain or shackle."

"So, so, my fair dame," thought Pierre Lamont, who had overheard this remark. "Bright as you appear, there is a skeleton in your cupboard. Chains and shackles! But you are sufficiently self-willed to throw these off." And he said aloud: "Can you ascertain for me if Fritz the Fool has returned from Geneva?"

"Certainly," replied Adelaide, and Dionetta being in the room, she sent her out to inquire.

"If he has returned," said Pierre Lamont, "the trial is over. I miss the fool's nightly report of the proceedings, which he has given me regularly since the commencement of the inquiry."

"If the trial is over," said Christian Almer, "the Advocate should be here."

"You need not expect him so soon," said Pierre Lamont; "after such exertion as he has gone through, an hour's solitude is imperative. Besides, Fritz can travel faster than our slow-going horses; he is as fleet as a hare."

"A favourite of yours, evidently."

"I have the highest respect for him. This particular fool is the wisest fool in my acquaintance."

Dionetta entered the room with Fritz at her heels.

"Well, Fritz," called out Pierre Lamont, "is the trial over?"

"Yes, Master Lamont, and we're ready for the next."

"The verdict, Fritz, the verdict?" eagerly inquired Pierre Lamont, and everybody in the room listened anxiously for the reply.

"If I were a bandy-legged man," said Fritz, ignoring the question, "I would hire some scoundrel to do a deed, so that you might be on one side and my lord the Advocate on the other. Then we should witness a fine battle of brains."

"Come, Fritz--the verdict!" repeated Pierre Lamont impatiently.

"On second thoughts," said Fritz quietly, "you would be no match for the greatest lawyer living. I would not have you on my side. It is as well that your pleading days are ended."

"No fooling, Fritz. The verdict; Acquitted?"

"What else? Washed white as driven snow."

"I knew it would be so," cried the old lawyer triumphantly. "How was it received?"

"The town is mad about it. The women are furious, and the men thunderstruck. You should have heard the speech! Such a thing was never known. Men's minds were twisted inside out, and the jury were convinced against their convictions. Why, Master Lamont, even Gautran himself for a few minutes believed himself to be innocent!"

"Enough," said Christian Almer sternly. "Leave the room."

Fritz darted a sharp look at the newly returned master, and with a low bow quitted the apartment. The next moment the Advocate made his appearance, and all eyes were turned towards him.