A noise like the voice of an angry sea roused me. I went to the garden gate, and through the small wicket I saw a great crowd of men and women—women especially—who howled fearfully. Marthe held my hand and trembled. "Mother, mother, what is it?" she kept asking. A sedate English—or American—journalist, who was with us at the time, said, "Don't pay any attention, Madame. Leave this gate. Some side with you, but others loathe you—and neither the one nor the other knows why." And he added in a murmur, "The great enemy of reason, the Multitude...." Words spoken at a dramatic moment often engrave themselves on the mind, and that last sentence often came back to me. I have since found that the journalist was quoting Sir Thomas Brown.

Mme. Chabrier, who had gone out early in the afternoon, had the greatest difficulty in reaching the house, and so had the messengers and the postman, who brought shoals of letters which I read more eagerly than before.... At last, late in the evening, policemen cleared the Impasse Ronsin and the storm died away. We sat down to dinner, Marthe and I, but couldn't eat....

In the middle of the night—it must have been 1.30 A.M.—the door-bell rang persistently. I rose, and dressed hastily, Mariette was already at the gate. "Who is it?" I cried; "what is it?" There were half a dozen journalists outside, who wanted to know if it were true that I had committed suicide! Mariette shouted, "No, of course not! Go away!" and banged the wicket to. That night again I was unable to sleep. I thought that I could not live through another day such as I had just passed, another night such as was now slowly dragging away. I was convinced that I had reached the limit of human endurance, but events were to prove to me, very soon—within the next twenty-four hours in fact!—that I was wrong. My calvary had only begun.... There is perhaps no limit to the human capacity for suffering, physically and mentally.

I thought of Couillard. What was he doing? Saying? Were my suspicions, were all the anonymous letters, quite wrong? Would he confess? Had he anything to confess?

An inspector had called and told me during the afternoon that Couillard had said that M. Steinheil, on the Saturday, May 30th, less than twelve hours before the crime, had told him that he expected some important letters, and had ordered him to hide them under the table-cover in the hall, when they came. Two messages had come, and Couillard had hidden them as he had been told.... These were important facts. It was not yet time to go to M. Hamard and tell him the truth about the pearl.... Couillard was making new and highly interesting statements, and might know and say much more.... If Couillard was quite innocent, and knew absolutely nothing that could throw some light on the crime, it was wicked of me to leave him in prison when, by stating that I had placed the pearl in his pocket-book merely in order to make the valet speak, he would have been at once set free. But at that time I did sincerely believe that he was not quite innocent, and was convinced that at any moment I might hear that he had revealed the great secret and the names of the assassins. And, therefore, I waited still a little longer....

CHAPTER XX
THE SO-CALLED "NIGHT OF THE CONFESSION"
(NOVEMBER 25-26, 1908)

EARLY in the morning, journalists came as usual to "find out the latest," and as usual they followed the workmen into the house.

At 10 A.M. detectives arrived to continue their searching, and once more, I hoped that they would make some discovery that would lead to "the truth." Mariette was in a state of frenzy and said to me, the moment she saw me: "The crowd is against you. Couillard is arrested. They will arrest my son and me, next, I bet. You're going to tell the Sûreté what happened the other night, when you saw me and Alexandre.... Let all this fuss be stopped.... Life isn't worth living.... Send the police away from here. They are driving me mad with their endless investigations. If all this goes on much longer, I don't know what may happen. At any rate, I shan't stop at anything! After all, if there is any one who knows something about the murder, it must be M. Bdl."

Mariette knew of my brief friendship with M. Bdl, and was fully aware that my relations with him had long ceased, but, for some reason, she wanted to intimidate me, and she hurled that name at me as a weapon, for she realised how anxious I was that Marthe should not know about that indiscretion.

Mariette went on, more fiercely than ever: "If the police don't leave this house, if you say a word against Alexandre or me, I shall say all I know about M. Ch. and M. Bdl., and then we shall see! Ah! you say you love your daughter.... Well, I love my son.... We shall see, we shall see...." Then, abruptly, her tone changed, and she said desperately: "There is only one thing for me to do; I must get drunk."...