I left the room. Maître Aubin was outside, in the corridor, with Marthe. I saw that she was crying.
"Are you arrested too?" I asked her.
"No, no," said my counsel. "She is free."
I dried Marthe's tears, and said to her (she told me all this afterwards, when she visited me in prison, and that is how I am able to complete this narrative): "You must not weep. You know very well I am not the only one.... Marie Antoinette was arrested, and others...."
My daughter embraced me and we parted. She has told me that I smiled, and that my eyes were no longer like "living" eyes.
I followed Maître Aubin back to the Sûreté, where we entered the Cabinet of M. Hamard, and my counsel has told me since that I sat down quietly and waited. M. Hamard, it appears, asked me whether I would like to eat something. It was past nine o'clock then. "Oh, yes," I replied. "Some ham and tea, please." When the tray was brought in, I settled down before a little table, and said to the Chief of the Sûreté, "Surely you are not going to let me eat by myself? Won't you have some tea with me?" M. Hamard said gently, "I have too much to do...."
Then I heard some one sob behind me. It was an inspector, a good man, who for months had done all he could to help me trace the murderers of my husband and my mother.
When I had finished eating, M. Hamard said, "Madame, it is time to go now. Bon courage!..."
My counsel's last words were, "In a week's time you will be back in your daughter's arms."
I went down the staircase between the inspectors, whom I knew so well.