forged that famous 'absolute proof' of Dreyfus's guilt, which
they knew to have been forged by some one, but that time would prove him
guilty of some abominable machination was to them a foregone conclusion.

One day, it must have been I suppose the 31st of August, a rather strange
telegram in French reached me for transmission to M. Zola. It came from
Paris, and was, so far as I remember, to this effect: 'Be prepared for a
great success.'

A name I was acquainted with followed; but what the telegram might mean I
knew not. There was absolutely nothing in the newspapers with reference
to any great success achieved at that moment by the Revisionist party;
but possibly the message might refer to one or another of M. Zola's
lawsuits, such as that with the 'Petit Journal' or that with the
handwriting experts. I re-telegraphed it to M. Zola, and that day, at all
events, I thought no more of the matter.

But I afterwards learnt that the telegram had perplexed him quite as much
as it perplexed me. A great success? What could it be? He racked his mind
in vain. He reviewed all the phases and aspects of the Dreyfus case,
wondering whether this or that had happened, but not suspecting the
public revelations which were then impending, the tragedy which was being
enacted.

For a while he walked up and down, feverish and anxious (he was at the
time in poor health), and then he would fling himself on a sofa, still
and ever indulging in his surmises. With that kind of prescience which he
had so frequently displayed in the Dreyfus affair, he felt certain that
something very important had occurred, for otherwise such a mysterious
telegram would never have been sent him. This lasted the whole evening.

My daughter Violette was with him at the time, and his feverishness
doubtless gained on her. At last she retired to rest, while M. Zola,
according to his wont, carried a lamp into his own room to sit there a
while and read some French newspapers which had reached him, via Wareham,
by the evening delivery. There was nothing in them of a nature to explain
the mysterious telegram; still he read on and on in the hope, as it were,
of quieting himself.

It was, I believe, between eleven o'clock and midnight when he rose to go
to bed, and as he did so he heard some loud exclamations, followed by a
cry. At first he fancied that the calls came from one of the servants'
rooms, and he paused on the landing. Then, however, as they were
repeated,