Vauvenarde might have met his death directly by our hand instead of that of Anastasius. It was the Procureur-general who said: “It can be argued that you would benefit by the decease of the defunct.” I replied that we could not benefit in any way. My sole object was to effect a reconciliation between husband and wife. “Will you explain why you gave yourself that trouble?” I never have smiled so grimly as I did then. How could I explain my precious pursuit of the eumoirous to a French Procureur-general? How could I put before him the point of view of a semi-disembodied spirit? I replied with lame lack of originality that my actions proceeded from disinterested friendship. “You are a pure altruist then?” said he. “Very pure,” said I. . . . It was only the facts of the scabbard of the knife having been found attached to the dwarf's person beneath his clothes, and of certain rambling menaces occurring in his Sultan papers that saved us from the indignity of being arrested and put into the dock. . . . During all this time I remained at the hotel at Mustapha Superieur. Lola moved to a suite of rooms in another hotel a little way down the hill. I saw her daily. At first she shrank from publicity and refused to go out, save in a closed carriage to the town when her presence was necessary at the inquiries. But after a time I persuaded her to brave the stare of the curious and stroll with me among the eucalyptus woods above. We cut ourselves off from other human companionship and felt like two lost souls wandering alone through mist. She conducted herself with grave and simple dignity. . . . Once or twice she visited Anastasius in prison. She found him humanely treated and not despondent. He thought they had arrested him for the poisoning of the horse, and laughed at their foolishness. As they refused to return him his dossier, he occupied himself in reconstructing it, and wrote pages and pages of incoherence to prove the guilt of Captain Vauvenarde. He was hopelessly mad. . . . The bond of pain bound me very close to Lola. “What are you going to do with your life?” I asked her one day. “So long as I have you as a friend, it doesn't greatly matter.” “You forget,” I said, “that you can't have me much longer.” “Are you going to leave me? It's not because I have dragged you through all this dirt and horror. Another woman might say that of another man--but not I of you. Why are you going to leave me? I want so little--only to see you now and then--to keep the heart in me.” “Can't you realise, that what I said in London is true?” “No. I can't. It's unbelievable. You can't believe it yourself. If you did, how could you go on behaving like anybody else--like me for instance?” “What would you do if you were condemned to die?”