"Sir," said she, "do not allow me to leave thus! Tell me if I may hope."
With a gesture of abandonment, she had seized his hand. He drew it away. But she looked at him with her beautiful eyes so ardent with prayer, that he was stirred.
"Very well, then, return here at five o'clock. Perhaps I may have something to tell you."
She went off. She quitted the house in still greater agony than on entering it. The situation had become clear, her fate remained in suspense. She was threatened with arrest which might take place at once. How could she keep alive until five o'clock? Suddenly she thought of Jacques, whom she had forgotten. He was another who might be her ruin, if they took her in charge! Although it was barely half-past two, she hastened to ascend the Rue du Rocher, in the direction of the Rue Cardinet.
M. Camy-Lamotte, left alone, stood before his writing-table. A familiar figure at the Tuileries, where his functions as chief secretary to the Ministry of Justice, caused him to be summoned almost daily, as powerful as the Minister himself, and even entrusted with more delicate duties, he was aware how irritating and alarming this Grandmorin case proved in high quarters. The opposition newspapers continued to carry on a noisy campaign; some accusing the police of being so busy with political business, that they had no time to arrest murderers; the others, probing the life of the President, gave their readers to understand that he belonged to the Court, where the lowest kind of debauchery prevailed; and this campaign really became disastrous, as the time for the elections approached. And so it had been formally intimated to the chief secretary, that he must bring the business to a termination as rapidly as possible, no matter how. The Minister, having relieved himself of this delicate affair by passing it on to him, he found himself sole arbiter of the decision to be taken, but on his own responsibility, it is true; a matter that required looking into, for he had no idea of paying for the others, should he prove inexpert.
M. Camy-Lamotte, still thinking, went and opened the door of the adjoining room where M. Denizet was waiting. And the latter, who had overheard everything, exclaimed on entering:
"What did I say? It is wrong to suspect those people. This woman is evidently only thinking of saving her husband from possible dismissal. She did not utter a single word that could arouse suspicion."
The chief secretary did not answer at once. All absorbed, his eyes on the magistrate, struck by his heavy, thin-lipped face, he was now thinking of that magistracy, which he held in his hand, as occult chief of its members, and he felt astonished that it was still so worthy in its poverty, so intelligent in its professional torpidity. But really, this gentleman, however sharp he might fancy himself, with his eyes veiled with thick lids, was tenacious in his conviction, when he thought he had got hold of the truth.
"So," resumed M. Camy-Lamotte, "you persist in believing in the guilt of this Cabuche?"
M. Denizet started in astonishment.