Between murder and me there was, perhaps, just the distance which separated me from the street, and I felt that it was necessary to fly at once--to fly that street, to fly from the guilty ones, if they were really guilty; to fly from myself! I thought of you, and I have come to say to you, 'My friend, this is how things are; I am drowning, I am lost; save me.'" "You have yourself found the salvation," replied Dorsenne.

"It is in your son and your wife.

See them first, and if I can not promise you that you will not suffer any more, you will no longer be tempted by that horrible idea." And he pointed to the pistol, which gleamed in the sunlight that entered through the casement.

Then he added: "And you will have the idea still less when you will have been able to prove 'de visu' what those anonymous letters were worth.

Twelve letters in fifteen days, and cuttings from how many papers?
And they claim that we invent heinousness in our books! If you like, we will search together for the person who can have elaborated that little piece of villany.