Never had they for an instant suspected the drama that was being performed in this house, so peaceful and harmonious when they entered it.

Olivier, with the jest of a person connected with the police, was in the habit of remarking that the dining-room savoured of the honest man.

Grivet, so as to have his say, had called the place the Temple of Peace.
Latterly, on two or three different occasions, Therese explained the bruises disfiguring her face, by telling the guests she had fallen down.
But none of them, for that matter, would have recognised the marks of the fist of Laurent; they were convinced as to their hosts being a model pair, replete with sweetness and love.
The paralysed woman had not made any fresh attempt to reveal to them the infamy concealed behind the dreary tranquillity of the Thursday evenings.

An eye-witness of the tortures of the murderers, and foreseeing the crisis which would burst out, one day or another, brought on by the fatal succession of events, she at length understood that there was no necessity for her intervention.

And from that moment, she remained in the background allowing the consequences of the murder of Camille, which were to kill the assassins in their turn, to take their course.