When arraigned and interrogated, Marie at once admitted that the diamonds were in her possession. She readily indicated the place where they would be found at Glandier, and made no difficulty as to their restitution. But she long refused positively to explain how she had come by them, declaring it to be a secret she was bound in honour to keep inviolate. At last, under the urgent entreaties of her friends, she confided the secret to her two counsel, Maître Bac and Maître Lachaud (at that time on the threshold of his great and enduring renown), and sent them to Madame Leautaud beseeching her to allow a full revelation of the facts. The letters she then wrote her school friend have been preserved. The first was brief, and merely introduced Maître Bac as a noble and conscientious person, who had her full confidence, and on whom Madame de Leautaud might rely in discussing an affair that concerned them both so closely. The second was a pathetic appeal to tell the whole truth about the diamonds, and it is not easy to say on reading it whether it was inspired by extraordinary astuteness or by genuine emotion. It ran:
MARIE,--May God never visit upon you the evil you have done me. Alas, I know you to be really good, but weak. You have told yourself that as I am likely to be convicted of an atrocious crime I may as well take the blame of one which is only infamous. I kept our secret. I left my honour in your hands, and you have not chosen to absolve me.
The time has arrived for doing me justice. Marie, for your conscience' sake, for the sake of your past, save me!... Remember the facts; you cannot deny them. From the moment I knew you I was deep in your confidence, and I heard the story of that intrigue, begun at school and continued at Busagny by letters that passed through my hands.
You soon discovered that this handsome Spaniard had neither fortune nor family. You forbade him to love, although you had first sought his love, and then you entered into another love affair with M. de Leautaud.
...The man you flouted cried for vengeance.... The situation became intolerable, but money alone could end it. I came to Busagny, and it was arranged between us that you should entrust your diamonds to me, so that I might raise money on them, with which you could pay the price he demanded.