“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he could carry it all right.”
“He started off then with the bag along the road toward St. Marleau?”
“Yes.”
The crown prosecutor glanced inquiringly toward the prisoner's counsel. The latter shook his head.
“You may step down, Monsieur Labbée,” directed the crown prosecutor. “Call Madame Blondin!” There was a stir in the courtroom now. Heads craned forward as the old woman shuffled across the floor to the witness box—Mother Blondin was quite capable of anything—even of throwing to the ground the Holy Book upon which the clerk would swear her! Mother Blondin, however, did nothing of the sort. She gripped at the edge of the witness box, mumbling at the clerk, and all the while straining her eyes through her steel-bowed spectacles at the prisoner across the room. And then her lips began to work curiously, her face to grow contorted—and suddenly the courtroom was in an uproar. She was shaking both scranny fists at Henri Mentone, and screaming at the top of her voice.
“That is the man! That is the man!”—her voice became ungovernable, insensate, it rose shrilly, it broke, it rose piercingly again. “That is the man! The law! The law! I demand the law on him! He killed my son! He did it! I tell you, he did it! He——”
Chairs and benches were scraping on the floor. Little cries of nervous terror came from the women; involuntarily men stood up the better to look at both Mother Blondin and the accused. It was a sensation! It was something to talk about in St. Marleau over the stoves in the coming winter. It was something of which nothing was to be missed.
“Order! Silence! Order!” bawled the clerk.