YANETTA. I? That's infamous.

MOUZON. Come, come, no shouting! I don't say you took a direct part in
the murder, I say it is highly probable that you knew of the murder,
perhaps advised it, and that you have profited by it. That would be
enough to place you in the dock beside your husband at the assizes. My
treatment of you will depend on the sincerity of your answers to my
questions. As you do or do not tell me the truth I shall either set you
at liberty or have you arrested. Now you can't say that I haven't warned
you! And now, if you please, inform me whether you persist in your first
statement, in which you affirm that Etchepare stopped at home on the
night of Ascension Day.

YANETTA. I do.

MOUZON. Well, it is untrue.

YANETTA [_excited_] The night on which Daddy Goyetche was murdered my
husband never left the house.

MOUZON. I tell you that is not the truth.

YANETTA [_as before_] The night Daddy Goyetche was murdered my husband
never left the house.

MOUZON. You seem to have got stuck. You go on repeating the same thing.

YANETTA. Yes, I go on repeating the same thing.

MOUZON. Well, now let us examine into the value of your evidence. Since
your marriage--for the last ten years--your conduct has left nothing to
be desired. You are thrifty, faithful, industrious, honest--

YANETTA. Well?

MOUZON. Wait a moment. You have two children, whom you adore. You are an
excellent mother. One hears of your almost heroic behavior at the time
your eldest child was ill--Georges, I think.

YANETTA. Yes, it was Georges. But what has that to do with the charge
against my husband?

MOUZON. Have patience. You will see presently.

YANETTA. Very well.

MOUZON. It is all the more to your credit that you are what you are, for
your husband does not give us an example of the same virtues. He
occasionally gets drunk.

YANETTA. No, he doesn't.

MOUZON. Come--everyone knows that. He is violent.

YANETTA. He's not violent.

MOUZON. So violent that he has been convicted four times for assault and
battery.

YANETTA. That's possible; at holiday times, in the evening, men get
quarrelling. But that was a long time ago. Now he behaves better, and
I'm very happy with him.

MOUZON. That surprises me.

YANETTA. Anyhow, does that prove he murdered old Goyetche?

MOUZON. Your husband is very grasping.

YANETTA. Poor people are forced to be very grasping or else to die of
starvation.

MOUZON. You defend him well.