She had, then, been in the room on the evening of the nineteenth of March? she was asked. She nodded. How had she come there? questioned Monsieur Jausion further, and his tone and mien were marked by a certain cautiousness and nicety, as if he feared to disturb the still timorous spirits of memory. Clarissa remained silent. Had she come by way of the Rue des Hebdomadiers? asked the Prefect. Clarissa nodded. "Speak! Speak!" thundered Monsieur Seguret suddenly, and even the two sheriff's officers were startled. "I met several persons," Clarissa whispered in a tone so low that all involuntarily bent their heads forward. "I was afraid of them, and I ran, from fear, into the first open house." Monsieur Jausion winked to the clerk. "Into this house, then?" he asked in a caressing voice, while the clerk seated himself on the bench near the stove and wrote in a crouching position. Clarissa continued in the same plaintive whisper: "I opened the door of this room. Somebody seized me by the arm and led me into the alcove. He enjoined me to be silent. It was Bastide Grammont." At last the name! But how different it was to pronounce it than merely to think it! Clarissa paused, while she closed her eyes and elapsed her hands convulsively. "After leaving me alone a while," she resumed as if speaking in her sleep, "he returned, bade me follow him and led me into the street. There he stood still and asked whether I knew him. I first said yes, then no. Thereupon he asked me if I had seen anything, and I said no. 'Go away!' he ordered, and I went. But I had not reached the centre of the town when he was again at my side and took my hand in his. 'I am not one of the murderers,' he protested, 'I met you and my only object was to save you. Swear that you will remain silent, swear on your father's life.' I swore, whereupon he left me. And that is all." Monsieur Jausion smiled skeptically. "You claim, Madame, to have fled in here from the street," he remarked, "but it has been established by unexceptionable testimony that the gate was locked from eight o'clock on. How do you explain that?" Clarissa remained mute, even her breath seemed to stop. The Prefect motioned to Monsieur Jausion to desist; for the present enough had been attained, it was enough that Bastide Grammont had been recognized by Clarissa. The resolve to force the criminal, who denied all share in the guilt, to a confession by having him unexpectedly confront the witness, came as a matter of course.