At the marriage of these two children, in Paris, journalists and photographers again harassed them. There was a free fight on the very steps of the church, and another almost before the altar itself, where snapshotters made a sudden appearance. Two or three persons were knocked down, and Marthe faltered. After the ceremony the poor child had to be comforted by the priests, and smuggled away by them.

I exchanged many letters with Marthe and her young husband, and then they came to spend a few months with me.

Not even the greatest of poets could ever describe my meeting with Marthe, after those months of agony, nor could the greatest composer express in music our feelings of heavenly joy! All that I and Marthe had gone through—and the reader knows by now what those experiences have been—vanished at the moment when we held each other in a fond embrace....

CHAPTER XXXII
CONCLUSION

MY Memoirs have come to an end.

I have tried not to be bitter or revengeful, and it is only when I have had to justify myself or vindicate my daughter that I have mentioned certain facts, certain documents, or certain names; and I have no doubt that the reader will agree with me that I have done this only when it has been absolutely necessary.

I have been asked, time after time, for my theory of the crime. I have turned that terrible problem over and over in my mind ever since the awful night of May 30th-31st, 1908, until at times I have well nigh lost my reason—and I have no theory.

Sometimes, it seems to me that the murderers were models who knew my husband. Sometimes, I think the crime was committed by persons who were in still closer touch with my husband and myself, or with one of us. Sometimes, I fancy that the instigator of the crime was a man who was in love with me. And finally, I sometimes fancy that the drama must have taken place as follows:

A man, a suspicious character, a declassé, hears or discovers that there are important political documents in my house. Perhaps he knows my husband, perhaps he knows me, more or less. He goes to some official—I say official for the lack of a more adequate word—and tells him he can secure certain political papers of much importance, papers that would, if they were divulged, cause much embarrassment, to say the least, to many prominent persons. He wants money, and possibly demands a document that seals the bargain as it were. Being a professional malefactor, he decides to steal something else besides the Faure documents. He knows that I possess pearls and handsome jewels.... Possibly, he is acquainted with the mysterious foreign personage, whom my husband befriended, the Jew, who, perhaps, occasionally attends the performances at the Hebrew Theatre, and knows that baskets of costumes are left unattended in the corridor of that theatre. Being a professional malefactor, he is a coward, and since there may be "some trouble," he decides that he had better not do the work alone. He and his friends to whom he has merely spoken of jewels and money—not of documents, for that he reserves for himself—examine the house; and possibly they are the men whom neighbours have seen lurking in the Impasse Ronsin. They have secured cards of invitation to the exhibition of M. Steinheil's works, and one of them lost his card in the Underground on the day of the crime. That exhibition made it possible for them to enter the house at a time when it was crowded, and when, therefore, their movements would not be observed. Besides, one and possibly two of the gang, know the house well, already.

Plans are carefully laid. We are in May. They have discovered that the Steinheils almost invariably spend the week-ends at Bellevue at this time of the year. It will be quite easy to commit the burglary.