ter that nothing any
friend might have urged would have prevented him from doing so. As a
matter of fact one friend did regard the return as somewhat unwise, and
intimated it both by telegram and letter. This compelled me to see M.
Zola again on the following Tuesday (May 30), but the objections were
overruled by him, and the arrangements which had been planned were
adhered to.

M. Zola had now drafted the declaration which he proposed issuing on the
morrow of his return home, and this he gave me to read. It was the
article 'Justice,' published in 'L'Aurore,' to which I have occasionally
referred in the course of the present narrative.

I left M. Zola rather late that Tuesday night in the expectation that
everything which had been arranged would follow in due course. As the
writing of 'Fecondite' was now finished he had time on his hands, and a
part of this he proposed to devote to taking a few final snapshots of
Norwood, the Crystal Palace, and surrounding scenery. He needed something
to do, for he could not sit hour by hour in his room at the Queen's Hotel
anxiously waiting for news of the proceedings at the Paris Palais de
Justice.

For my part I had begun to prepare the present narrative, and as he would
not listen to my repeated offers to take him to the Derby, it was
arranged that I should not see him again until the end of the week. On
Friday, however, reports were already in circulation to the effect that
M. Fasquelle (M. Zola's French publisher) had come to London for the
purpose of escorting him home.

This was true, and I foresaw that the rumours might lead to some
modifications of our programme; for M. Zola did not wish his return to
have any public character. He had forbidden all the demonstrations which
his friends in Paris were anxious to arrange in his honour, declaring
that he desired to go back quietly and privately, and then at once place
himself at the disposal of the public prosecutor.

On Friday I sent my daughter Violette to Norwood with a parcel of M.
Zola's photographs, received by Messrs. Chatto and Windus from Miss Loie
Fuller, who being greatly interested in the Clarence Ward of St. Mary's
Hospital, particularly wished M. Zola to sign these portraits in order
that they might be sold at a bazaar which was to be held for the benefit
of the hospital referred to. I told my daughter that I should myself go
down to the Queen's Hotel on the morrow, and she brought me back a
message to the effe