"Mademoiselle!... Oh, mademoiselle!" implored the magistrate, filled with pity. He tried to find some words of consolation, and this confirmed her worst fears: "I swear to you!... It is certain your brother was not guilty!" The distracted girl was beyond listening to the magistrate's words! Huddled up in an arm-chair, she lay inert, collapsed. Presently she rose like a person moving in some mad dream, her eyes wild: "Take me to him!... I want to see him! They have killed him for me!... I must see him!" Such was her insistence, the violence with which she claimed the right to go to her brother, to kneel beside him, that Monsieur Fuselier dared not refuse her this consolation. "Control yourself, I beg of you! I am going to take you to him; but, for Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Control yourself!" With his eyes he sought for the moral support of Fandor, whose presence he suddenly remembered. But our journalist, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, had quietly slipped from the room. Evidently some unpleasant occurrence had upset the routine existence of the functionaries at the Depot. The warders were coming and going, talking among themselves, leaning against the doors of the numerous cells. The chief warder called one of his men: "There must be no more of this disorder, Nibet!" The chief warder was furious: he was about to hold forth to his subordinate, when an inspector approached. "What is it?" he asked. "Sergeant, it is Monsieur Jouet. He has a gentleman with him. He has a permit. Should I allow him to enter?" "Who? Monsieur Jouet?" "No, the gentleman accompanying him!" "Hang it all! Why, yes--if he has a permit!" The sergeant moved away shrugging his shoulders disgustedly. "Not pleased with things this morning, the chief isn't," one of the warders remarked. "Not likely, after last night's performance!" "It's he who will catch it hot over this business!" The warder rubbed his hands, laughing. Meanwhile, Fandor had appeared at the entrance of the corridor, under the guidance of a warder. He was thinking of the splendid copy he had secured: he was hoping that when Fuselier learned that a journalist had obtained admittance to the Depot, and had seen the corpse of Jacques Dollon in his cell, that he would not turn vicious: "But after all," said he to himself, "Fuselier is not the man to give me the go-by out of spite."