So rapid and unlooked for had been the interruption, and so vehement
the utterance of the Italian while delivering his facts, that, though
several present saw their tendency when it was too late, none had
sufficient presence of mind to prevent the exposure. A murmur arose in the
crowd, which stirred like a vast sheet of fluid on which a passing gust
had alighted, and then became fixed and calm. Of all present, the bailiff
manifested the least surprise or concern, for to him the last minister of
the law was an object, if not precisely of respect, of politic good-will
rather than of dishonor.
"What of this!" he answered, in the way of one who had expected a far more
important revelation. "What of this, should it be true! Harkee,
friend,--art thou, in sooth, the noted Balthazar, he to whose family the
canton is indebted for so much fair justice?"
Balthazar saw that his secret was betrayed, and that it were wiser simply
to admit the facts, than to have recourse to subterfuge or denial. Nature,
moreover, had made him a man with strong and pure propensities for the
truth, and he was never without the innate consciousness of the injustice
of which he had been made the victim by the unfeeling ordinance of
society.
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