andson, my poor little Toto! Why,
I should be worse than a wild beast to try and bring my own flesh and
blood to perdition."

She soon perceived, however, that her lamentations did not much affect
M. Segmuller, hence, suddenly changing both her tone and manner, she
began her justification. She did not positively deny her past; but she
threw all the blame on the injustice of destiny, which, while favoring a
few, generally the less deserving, showed no mercy to others. Alas!
she was one of those who had had no luck in life, having always been
persecuted, despite her innocence. In this last affair, for instance,
how was she to blame? A triple murder had stained her shop with blood;
but the most respectable establishments are not exempt from similar
catastrophes. During her solitary confinement, she had, said she, dived
down into the deepest recesses of her conscience, and she was still
unable to discover what blame could justly be laid at her door.

"I can tell you," interrupted the magistrate. "You are accused of
impeding the action of the law."

"Good heavens! Is it possible?"

"And of seeking to defeat justice. This is equivalent to complicity,
Widow Chupin; take care. When the police entered your cabin, after this
crime had been committed, you refused to answer their questions."

"I told them all that I knew."

"Very well, then, you must repeat what you told them to me."

M. Segmuller had reason to feel satisfied. He had conducted the
examination in such a way that the Widow Chupin would now have to
initiate a narrative of the tragedy. This excellent point gained; for
this shrewd old woman, possessed of all her coolness, would naturally
have been on her guard against any direct questions. Now, it was
essential that she should not suspect either what the magistrate knew
of the affair, or what he was ignorant of. By leaving her to her own
devices she might, in the course of the version which she proposed to
substitute for the truth, not merely strengthen Lecoq's theories, but
also let fall some remark calculated to facilitate the task of future
investigation. Both M. Segmuller and Lecoq were of opinion that the
version of the crime which they were about to hear had been concocted
at the station-house of the Place d'Italie while the murderer and the
spurious drunkard were left together, and that it had been transmitted
by the accomplice to the widow during the brief conversation they were
allowed to have through t