She spoke with a simplicity and a remorse which it was difficult to disbelieve.  M. Fleuriot, the judge, now at last convinced that the Dreyfus affair was for nothing in the history of this crime, listened to her with sympathy.

“That is your explanation, mademoiselle,” he said gently.  “But I must tell you that we have another.”

“Yes, monsieur?” Celia asked.

“Given by Helene Vauquier,” said Fleuriot.

Even after these days Celia could not hear that woman’s name without a shudder of fear and a flinching of her whole body.  Her face grew white, her lips dry.

“I know, monsieur, that Helene Vauquier is not my friend,” she said.  “I was taught that very cruelly.”

“Listen, mademoiselle, to what she says,” said the judge, and he read out to Celia an extract or two from Hanaud’s report of his first interview with Helene Vauquier in her bedroom at the Villa Rose.

“You hear what she says.  ’Mme. Dauvray would have had seances all day, but Mlle. Celie pleaded that she was left exhausted at the end of them.  But Mlle. Celie was of an address.’  And again, speaking of Mme. Dauvray’s queer craze that the spirit of Mme. de Montespan should be called up, Helene Vauquier says:  ’She was never gratified.  Always she hoped.  Always Mlle. Celie tantalised her with the hope.  She would not spoil her fine affairs by making these treats too common.’  Thus she attributes your reluctance to multiply your experiments to a desire to make the most profit possible out of your wares, like a good business woman.”

“It is not true, monsieur,” cried Celia earnestly.  “I tried to stop the seances because now for the first time I recognised that I had been playing with a dangerous thing.  It was a revelation to me.  I did not know what to do.  Mme. Dauvray would promise me everything, give me everything, if only I would consent when I refused.  I was terribly frightened of what would happen.  I did not want power over people.  I knew it was not good for her that she should suffer so much excitement.  No, I did not know what to do.  And so we all moved to Aix.”

And there she met Harry Wethermill on the second day after her arrival, and proceeded straightway for the first time to fall in love.  To Celia it seemed that at last that had happened for which she had so longed.  She began really to live as she understood life at this time.  The day, until she met Harry Wethermill, was one flash of joyous expectation; the hours when they were together a time of contentment which thrilled with some chance meeting of the hands into an exquisite happiness.  Mme. Dauvray understood quickly what was the matter, and laughed at her affectionately.

“Celie, my dear,” she said, “your friend, M. Wethermill—­’Arry, is it not?  See, I pronounce your tongue—­will not be as comfortable as the nice, fat, bourgeois gentleman I meant to find for you.  But, since you are young, naturally you want storms.  And there will be storms, Celie,” she concluded, with a laugh.