"Did Dreyfus write to you?" I asked.
"No," said he. "Nor I to him. I have no time to write letters."
"Then how did it all come about?" I demanded.
"He was attracting too much attention!" cried the novelist, passionately. "He was living tragedy while I was only writing it. People said his story was greater than any I, Émile—"
"Witherup!" said I, anxiously, for it seemed to me that the people in the next box were listening.
"Merci!" said he. "Yes, I, Mrs. Watkins Wilbur Witherup, of Westchester City, U. S. A., was told that this man's story was greater and deeper in its tragic significance than any I could conceive. Wherefore I wrote to the War Department and accused it of concealing the truth from France in the mere interests of policy, of diplomacy. I made them tremble. I made the army shiver. I have struck a blow at the republic from which it will not soon recover. And to-day Dreyfus pales beside the significance of Zola. I believe in free institutions, but Heaven help a free institution when it clashes with a paying corporation like Émile—"
"Witherup! Do be cautious," I put in again. "Yet, sir," I added, "they have quashed your sentence, and you need not go to jail."
"No," said he, gloomily. "I need not. Why? Because jail is safer than home. That is why they did it. They dare not exile me. They hope by quashing me to be rid of me. But they will see. I will force them to imprison me yet."