“We may imagine her thinking thus — ’I am to meet a certain person for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known only to myself.  It is necessary that there be no chance of interruption — there must be sufficient time given us to elude pursuit — I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes — I well tell St. Eustache not to call for me until dark — in this way, my absence from home for the longest possible period, without causing suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time than in any other manner.  If I bid St. Eustache call for me at dark, he will be sure not to call before; but, if I wholly neglect to bid him call, my time for escape will be diminished, since it will be expected that I return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety.  Now, if it were my design to return at all — if I had in contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question — it would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for, calling, he will be sure to ascertain that I have played him false — a fact of which I might keep him for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of my intention, by returning before dark, and by then stating that I had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes.  But, as it is my design never to return — or not for some weeks — or not until certain concealments are effected — the gaining of time is the only point about which I need give myself any concern.’

“You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion in relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girl had been the victim of a gang of blackguards.  Now, the popular opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded.  When arising of itself —­ when manifesting itself in a strictly spontaneous manner —­ we should look upon it as analogous with that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.  In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would abide by its decision.  But it is important that we find no palpable traces of suggestion.  The opinion must be rigorously the public’s own; and the distinction is often exceedingly difficult to perceive and to maintain.  In the present instance, it appears to me that this ’public opinion’ in respect to a gang, has been superinduced by the collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts.  All Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young, beautiful and notorious.  This corpse is found, bearing marks of violence, and floating in the river.  But it is now made known that, at the very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed that the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetuated, by a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of a second young female.  Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity