"But I am not mad!" she cried, her voice rising to a shrill note as she faced Perissard once more. "I begged and prayed Laroque not to follow your hateful advice, and he refused to listen to me. As I would not run the risk of his seeing and speaking to my son, I killed him!"
Muttered imprecations and half-smothered exclamations of anger swept through the court, and the throng heaved forward against the railings. Raymond sprang up into the dock and with one arm around the woman's waist and the other resting on the arm nearest him, he gently forced her down into her chair once more. The usher pounded his desk and the gendarmes struggled to push the crowd back from the railing. It was several minutes before order was restored, but the President, hastily consulting his confrères on the bench, paid no heed.
"You may go!" he said, when the room had reached almost its normal semi-hush and the voices had dropped into excited whisperings. "Call the other witness!"
M. Perissard started hurriedly for the door, but at a signal from M. Valmorin the gendarmes stopped him.
"No, M. Perissard," said the prosecutor. "Do not leave the court, if you please. We may want you again."
"The presiding judge said I could go, and I have important business!" protested the blackmailer.
"And I ask you to stay!" repeated M. Valmorin, firmly. "Kindly sit down!"
He was escorted, muttering and grumbling, to the witnesses' bench.
"I really don't understand! It's disgraceful!" he fumed. "I was not regularly cited—Article 313 of the Code of Criminal Instruction. It's a shame!"
But no one paid any further attention to him, excepting a few jurors and the nearest of the spectators, who favored him with curious and unpleasant glances. The usher brought M. Merivel to the stand. He came with mincing steps, and many bows, and a confident smirk on his fat, heavy face.