Title: The Woman of Mystery
Author: Leblanc, Maurice, 1864-1941
Language: English
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[Illustration: Unmasked and helpless, she maintained an attitude of
challenge and defiance]



THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY

BY MAURICE LEBLANC

AUTHOR OF "CONFESSIONS OF ARSÈNE LUPIN,"
"THE TEETH OF THE TIGER," ETC.

NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1916.

BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY



CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
I.      THE MURDER                                         9
II.     THE LOCKED ROOM                                   23
III.    THE CALL TO ARMS                                  39
IV.     A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH                           59
V.      THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY                     77
VI.     WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN                         94
VII.    H. E. R. M.                                      108
VIII.   ÉLISABETH'S DIARY                                126
IX.     A SPRIG OF EMPIRE                                141
X.      75 OR 155?                                       156
XI.     "YSERY, MISERY"                                  167
XII.    MAJOR HERMANN                                    182
XIII.   THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE                             198
XIV.    A MASTERPIECE OF KULTUR                          220
XV.     PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY                        236
XVI.    THE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLE                          258
XVII.   THE LAW OF THE CONQUEROR                         277
XVIII.  HILL 132                                         292
XIX.    HOHENZOLLERN                                     310
XX.     THE DEATH PENALTY--AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT      330



THE WOMAN OF MYSTERY


CHAPTER I

THE MURDER


"Suppose I were to tell you," said Paul Delroze, "that I once stood face
to face with him on French. . . ."

Élisabeth looked up at him with the fond expression of a bride to whom
the least word of the man she loves is a subject of wonder:

"You have seen William II. in France?"

"Saw him with my own eyes; and I have never forgotten a single one of
the details that marked the meeting. And yet it happened very long ago."

He was speaking with a sudden seriousness, as though the revival of that
memory had awakened the most painful thoughts in his mind.

"Tell me about it, won't you, Paul?" asked Élisabeth.

"Yes, I will," he said. "In any case, though I was only a child at the
time, the incident played so tragic a part in my life that I am bound
to tell you the whole story."

The train stopped and they got out at Corvigny, the last station on the
local branch line which, starting from the chief town in the department,
runs through the Liseron Valley and ends, fifteen miles from the
frontier, at the foot of the little Lorraine city which Vauban, as he
tells us in his "Memoirs," surrounded "with the most perfect demilunes
imaginable."

The railway-station presented an appearance of unusual animation. There
were numbers of soldiers, including many officers. A crowd of
passengers--tradespeople, peasants, workmen and visitors to the
neighboring health-resorts served by Corvigny--stood amid piles of
luggage on the platform, awaiting the departure of the next train for
the junction.

It was the last Thursday in July, the Thursday before the mobilization
of the French army.

Élisabeth pressed up against her husband:

"Oh, Paul," she said, shivering with anxiety, "if only we don't have
war!"

"War! What an idea!"

"But look at all these people leaving, all these families running away
from the frontier!"

"That proves nothing."

"No, but you saw it in the paper just now. The news is very bad. Germany
is preparing for war. She has planned the whole thing. . . . Oh, Paul,
if we were to be separated! . . . I should know nothing about you . . .
and you might be wounded . . . and . . ."

He squeezed her hand:

"Don't be afraid, Élisabeth. Nothing of the kind will happen. There
can't be war unless somebody declares it. And who would be fool enough,
criminal enough, to do anything so abominable?"

"I am not afraid," she said, "and I am sure that I should be very brave
if you had to go. Only . . . only it would be worse for us than for
anybody else. Just think, darling: we were only married this morning!"

At this reference to their wedding of a few hours ago, containing so
great a promise of deep and lasting joy, her charming face lit up, under
its halo of golden curls, with a smile of utter trustfulness; and she
whispered:

"Married this morning, Paul! . . . So you can understand that my load of
happiness is not yet very heavy."

There was a movement among the crowd. Everybody gathered around the
exit. A general officer, accompanied by two aides-de-camp, stepped out
into the station-yard, where a motor-car stood waiting for him. The
strains were heard of a military band; a battalion of light infantry
marched down the road. Next came a team of sixteen horses, driven by
artillery-men and dragging an enormous siege-piece which, in spite of
the weight of its carriage, looked light, because of the extreme length
of the gun. A herd of bullocks followed.

Paul, who was unable to find a porter, was standing on the pavement,
carrying the two traveling-bags, when a man in leather gaiters, green
velveteen breeches and a shooting-jacket with horn buttons, came up to
him and raised his cap:

"M. Paul Delroze?" he said. "I am the keeper at the château."

He had a powerful, open face, a skin hardened by exposure to the sun and
the cold, hair that was already turning gray and that rather uncouth
manner often displayed by old servants whose place allows them a certain
degree of independence. For seventeen years he had lived on the great
estate of Ornequin, above Corvigny, and managed it for Élisabeth's
father, the Comte d'Andeville.

"Ah, so you're Jérôme?" cried Paul. "Good! I see you had the Comte
d'Andeville's letter. Have our servants come?"

"They arrived this morning, sir, the three of them; and they have been
helping my wife and me to tidy up the house and make it ready to receive
the master and the mistress."

He took off his cap again to Élisabeth, who said:

"Then you remember me, Jérôme? It is so long since I was here!"

"Mlle. Élisabeth was four years old then. It was a real sorrow for my
wife and me when we heard that you would not come back to the house
. . . nor Monsieur le Comte either, because of his poor dead wife. So
Monsieur le Comte does not mean to pay us a little visit this year?"

"No, Jérôme, I don't think so. Though it is so many years ago, my father
is still very unhappy."

Jérôme took the bags and placed them in a fly which he had ordered at
Corvigny. The heavy luggage was to follow in the farm-cart.

It was a fine day and Paul told them to lower the hood. Then he and his
wife took their seats.

"It's not a very long drive," said the keeper. "Under ten miles. But
it's up-hill all the way."

"Is the house more or less fit to live in?" asked Paul.

"Well, it's not like a house that has been lived in; but you'll see for
yourself, sir. We've done the best we could. My wife is so pleased that
you and the mistress are coming! You'll find her waiting for her at the
foot of the steps. I told her that you would be there between half-past
six and seven. . . ."

The fly drove off.

"He seems a decent sort of man," said Paul to Élisabeth, "but he can't
have much opportunity for talking. He's making up for lost time."

The street climbed the steep slope of the Corvigny hills and
constituted, between two rows of shops, hotels and public buildings, the
main artery of the town, blocked on this day with unaccustomed traffic.
Then it dipped and skirted Vauban's ancient bastions. Next came a
switchback road across a plain commanded on the right and left by the
two forts known as the Petit and the Grand Jonas.

As they drove along this winding road, which meandered through fields of
oats and wheat beneath the leafy vault formed overhead by the
close-ranked poplars, Paul Delroze came back to the episode of his
childhood which he had promised to tell to Élisabeth:

"As I said, Élisabeth, the incident is connected with a terrible
tragedy, so closely connected that the two form only one episode in my
memory. The tragedy was much talked about at the time; and your father,
who was a friend of my father's, as you know, heard of it through the
newspapers. The reason why he did not mention it to you was that I asked
him not to, because I wanted to be the first to tell you of events . . .
so painful to myself."

Their hands met and clasped. He knew that every one of his words would
find a ready listener; and, after a brief pause, he continued:

"My father was one of those men who compel the sympathy and even the
affection of all who know them. He had a generous, enthusiastic,
attractive nature and an unfailing good-humor, took a passionate
interest in any fine cause and any fine spectacle, loved life and
enjoyed it with a sort of precipitate haste. He enlisted in 1870 as a
volunteer, earned his lieutenant's commission on the battlefield and
found the soldier's heroic existence so well suited to his tastes that
he volunteered a second time for Tonkin, and a third to take part in
the conquest of Madagascar. . . . On his return from this campaign, in
which he was promoted to captain and received the Legion of Honor, he
married. Six years later he was a widower."

"You were like me, Paul," said Élisabeth. "You hardly enjoyed the
happiness of knowing your mother."

"No, for I was only four years old. But my father, who felt my mother's
death most cruelly, bestowed all his affection upon me. He made a point
of personally giving me my early education. He left nothing undone to
perfect my physical training and to make a strong and plucky lad of me.
I loved him with all my heart. To this day I cannot think of him without
genuine emotion. . . . When I was eleven years old, I accompanied him on
a journey through France, which he had put off for years because he
wanted me to take it with him at an age when I could understand its full
meaning. It was a pilgrimage to the identical places and along the roads
where he had fought during the terrible year."

"Did your father believe in the possibility of another war?"

"Yes; and he wanted to prepare me for it. 'Paul,' he said, 'I have no
doubt that one day you will be facing the same enemy whom I fought
against. From this moment pay no attention to any fine words of peace
that you may hear, but hate that enemy with all the hatred of which you
are capable. Whatever people may say, he is a barbarian, a
vain-glorious, bloodthirsty brute, a beast of prey. He crushed us once
and he will not rest content until he has crushed us again and, this
time, for good. When that day comes, Paul, remember all the journeys
which we have made together. Those which you will take will mark so many
triumphant stages, I am sure of it. But never forget the names of these
places, Paul; never let your joy in victory wipe out their names of
sorrow and humiliation: Froeschwiller, Mars-la-Tour, Saint-Privat and
the rest. Mind, Paul, and remember!' And he then smiled. 'But why should
I trouble? He himself, the enemy, will make it his business to arouse
hatred in the hearts of those who have forgotten and those who have not
seen. Can he change? Not he! You'll see, Paul, you'll see. Nothing that
I can say to you will equal the terrible reality. They are monsters.'"

Paul Delroze ceased. His wife asked him a little timidly:

"Do you think your father was absolutely right?"

"He may have been influenced by cruel recollections that were too recent
in his memory. I have traveled a good deal in Germany, I have even lived
there, and I believe that the state of men's minds has altered. I
confess, therefore, that I sometimes find a difficulty in understanding
my father's words. And yet . . . and yet they very often disturb me. And
then what happened afterwards is so inexplicable."

The carriage had slackened its pace. The road was rising slowly towards
the hills that overhang the Liseron Valley. The sun was setting in the
direction of Corvigny. They passed a diligence, laden with trunks, and
two motor cars crowded with passengers and luggage. A picket of cavalry
galloped across the fields.

"Let's get out and walk," said Paul Delroze.

They followed the carriage on foot; and Paul continued:

"The rest of what I have to tell you, Élisabeth, stands out in my memory
in very precise details, that seem to emerge as though from a thick fog
in which I cannot see a thing. For instance, I just know that, after
this part of our journey, we were to go from Strasburg to the Black
Forest. Why our plans were changed I cannot tell. . . . I can see myself
one morning in the station at Strasburg, stepping into the train for the
Vosges . . . yes, for the Vosges. . . . My father kept on reading a
letter which he had just received and which seemed to gratify him. The
letter may have affected his arrangements; I don't know. We lunched in
the train. There was a storm brewing, it was very hot and I fell asleep,
so that all I can remember is a little German town where we hired two
bicycles and left our bags in the cloak-room. It's all very vague in my
mind. We rode across the country."

"But don't you remember what the country was like?"

"No, all I know is that suddenly my father said: 'There, Paul, we're
crossing the frontier; we're in France now.' Later on--I can't say how
long after--he stopped to ask his road of a peasant, who showed him a
short-cut through the woods. But the road and the short-cut are nothing
more in my mind than an impenetrable darkness in which my thoughts are
buried. . . . Then, all of a sudden, the darkness is rent and I see,
with astonishing plainness, a glade in the wood, tall trees, velvety
moss and an old chapel. And the rain falls in great, thick drops, and my
father says, 'Let's take shelter, Paul.' Oh, how I remember the sound of
his voice and how exactly I picture the little chapel, with its walls
green with damp! We went and put our bicycles under shelter at the back,
where the roof projected a little way beyond the choir. Just then the
sound of a conversation reached us from the inside and we heard the
grating of a door that opened round the corner. Some one came out and
said, in German, 'There's no one here. Let us make haste.' At that
moment we were coming round the chapel, intending to go in by this side
door; and it so happened that my father, who was leading the way,
suddenly found himself in the presence of the man who had spoken in
German. Both of them stepped back, the stranger apparently very much
annoyed and my father astounded at the unexpected meeting. For a second
or two, perhaps, they stood looking at each other without moving. I
heard my father say, under his breath, 'Is it possible? The Emperor?'
And I myself, surprised as I was at the words, had not a doubt of it,
for I had often seen the Kaiser's portrait; the man in front of us was
the German Emperor."

"The German Emperor?" echoed Élisabeth. "You can't mean that!"

"Yes, the Emperor in France! He quickly lowered his head and turned the
velvet collar of his great, flowing cape right up to the brim of his
hat, which was pulled down over his eyes. He looked towards the chapel.
A lady came out, followed by a man whom I hardly saw, a sort of servant.
The lady was tall, a young woman still, dark and rather good-looking.
. . . The Emperor seized her arm with absolute violence and dragged her
away, uttering angry words which we were unable to hear. They took the
road by which we had come, the road leading to the frontier. The servant
had hurried into the woods and was walking on ahead. 'This really is a
queer adventure,' said my father, laughing. 'What on earth is William
doing here? Taking the risk in broad daylight, too! I wonder if the
chapel possesses some artistic interest. Come and see, Paul.' . . . We
went in. A dim light made its way through a window black with dust and
cobwebs. But this dim light was enough to show us some stunted pillars
and bare walls and not a thing that seemed to deserve the honor of an
imperial visit, as my father put it, adding, 'It's quite clear that
William came here as a tripper, at hazard, and that he is very cross at
having his escapade discovered. I expect the lady who was with him told
him that he was running no danger. That would account for his irritation
and his reproaches.'"

Paul broke off again. Élisabeth nestled up against him timidly.
Presently he continued:

"It's curious, isn't it, Élisabeth, that all these little details, which
really were comparatively unimportant for a boy of my age, should have
been recorded faithfully in my mind, whereas so many other and much more
essential facts have left no trace at all. However, I am telling you all
this just as if I still had it before my eyes and as if the words were
still sounding in my ears. And at this very moment I can see, as plainly
as I saw her at the moment when we left the chapel, the Emperor's
companion coming back and crossing the glade with a hurried step; and I
can hear her say to my father, 'May I ask a favor of you, monsieur?' She
had been running and was out of breath, but did not wait for him to
answer and at once added, 'The gentleman you saw would like to speak to
you.' This was said in perfect French without the least accent. . . . My
father hesitated. But his hesitation seemed to shock her as though it
were an unspeakable offense against the person who had sent her; and she
said, in a harsher tone, 'Surely you do not mean to refuse!' 'Why not?'
said my father, with obvious impatience. 'I am not here to receive
orders.' She restrained herself and said, 'It is not an order, it is a
wish.' 'Very well,' said my father, 'I will agree to the interview. I
will wait for your friend here.' She seemed shocked. 'No, no,' she
said, 'you must . . .' 'I must put myself out, must I?' cried my father,
in a loud voice. 'You expect me to cross the frontier to where somebody
is condescending to expect me? I am sorry, madam, but I will not consent
to that. Tell your friend that if he fears an indiscretion on my part he
can set his mind at rest. Come along, Paul.' He took off his hat to the
lady and bowed. But she barred his way: 'No, no,' she said, 'you must do
what I ask. What is a promise of discretion worth? The thing must be
settled one way or the other; and you yourself will admit. . . .' Those
were the last words I heard. She was standing opposite my father in a
violent and hostile attitude. Her face was distorted with an expression
of fierceness that terrified me. Oh, why did I not foresee what was
going to happen? . . . But I was so young! And it all came so quickly!
. . . She walked up to my father and, so to speak, forced him back to
the foot of a large tree, on the right of the chapel. They raised their
voices. She made a threatening gesture. He began to laugh. And suddenly,
immediately, she whipped out a knife--I can see the blade now, flashing
through the darkness--and stabbed him in the chest, twice . . . twice,
there, full in the chest. My father fell to the ground."

Paul Delroze stopped, pale with the memory of the crime.

"Oh," faltered Élisabeth, "your father was murdered? . . . My poor
Paul, my poor darling!" And in a voice of anguish she asked, "What
happened next, Paul? Did you cry out?"

"I shouted, I rushed towards him, but a hand caught me in an
irresistible grip. It was the man, the servant, who had darted out of
the woods and seized me. I saw his knife raised above my head. I felt a
terrible blow on my shoulder. Then I also fell."



CHAPTER II

THE LOCKED ROOM


The carriage stood waiting for them a little way ahead. They had sat
down by the roadside on reaching the upland at the top of the ascent.
The green, undulating valley of the Liseron opened up before them, with
its little winding river escorted by two white roads which followed its
every turn. Behind them, under the setting sun, some three hundred feet
below, lay the clustering mass of Corvigny. Two miles in front of them
rose the turrets of Ornequin and the ruins of the old castle.

Terrified by Paul's story, Élisabeth was silent for a time. Then she
said:

"Oh, Paul, how terrible it all is! Were you very badly hurt?"

"I can remember nothing until the day when I woke up in a room which I
did not know and saw a nun and an old lady, a cousin of my father's, who
were nursing me. It was the best room of an inn somewhere between
Belfort and the frontier. Twelve days before, at a very early hour in
the morning, the innkeeper had found two bodies, all covered with blood,
which had been laid there during the night. One of the bodies was quite
cold. It was my poor father's. I was still breathing, but very slightly.
. . . I had a long convalescence, interrupted by relapses and fits of
delirium, in which I tried to make my escape. My old cousin, the only
relation I had left, showed me the most wonderful and devoted kindness.
Two months later she took me home with her. I was very nearly cured of
my wound, but so greatly affected by my father's death and by the
frightful circumstances surrounding it that it was several years before
I recovered my health completely. As to the tragedy itself. . . ."

"Well?" asked Élisabeth, throwing her arm round her husband's neck, with
an eager movement of protection.

"Well, they never succeeded in fathoming the mystery. And yet the police
conducted their investigations zealously and scrupulously, trying to
verify the only information which they were able to employ, that which I
gave them. All their efforts failed. You know, my information was very
vague. Apart from what had happened in the glade and in front of the
chapel, I knew nothing. I could not tell them where to find the chapel,
nor where to look for it, nor in what part of the country the tragedy
had occurred."

"But still you had taken a journey, you and your father, to reach that
part of the country; and it seems to me that, by tracing your road back
to your departure from Strasburg. . . ."

"Well, of course they did their best to follow up that track; and the
French police, not content with calling in the aid of the German police,
sent their shrewdest detectives to the spot. But this is exactly what
afterwards, when I was of an age to think out things, struck me as so
strange: not a single trace was found of our stay at Strasburg. You
quite understand? Not a trace of any kind. Now, if there was one thing
of which I was absolutely certain, it was that we had spent at least two
days and nights at Strasburg. The magistrate who had the case in hand,
looking upon me as a child and one who had been badly knocked about and
upset, came to the conclusion that my memory must be at fault. But I
knew that this was not so; I knew it then and I know it still."

"What then, Paul?"

"Well, I cannot help seeing a connection between the total elimination
of undeniable facts--facts easily checked or reconstructed, such as the
visit of a Frenchman and his son to Strasburg, their railway journey,
the leaving of their luggage in the cloak-room of a town in Alsace, the
hiring of a couple of bicycles--and this main fact, that the Emperor was
directly, yes, directly mixed up in the business."

"But this connection must have been as obvious to the magistrate's mind
as to yours, Paul."

"No doubt; but neither the examining magistrate nor any of his
colleagues and the other officials who took my evidence was willing to
admit the Emperor's presence in Alsace on that day."

"Why not?"

"Because the German newspapers stated that he was in Frankfort at that
very hour."

"In Frankfort?"

"Of course, he is stated to be wherever he commands and never at a place
where he does not wish his presence known. At any rate, on this point
also I was accused of being in error and the inquiry was thwarted by an
assemblage of obstacles, impossibilities, lies and alibis which, to my
mind, revealed the continuous and all-powerful action of an unlimited
authority. There is no other explanation. Just think: how can two French
subjects put up at a Strasburg hotel without having their names entered
in the visitors' book? Well, whether because the book was destroyed or a
page torn out, no record whatever of the names was found. So there was
one proof, one clue gone. As for the hotel proprietor and waiters, the
railway booking clerks and porters, the man who owned the bicycles:
these were so many subordinates, so many accomplices, all of whom
received orders to be silent; and not one of them disobeyed."

"But afterwards, Paul, you must have made your own search?"

"I should think I did! Four times since I came of age I have been over
the whole frontier from Switzerland to Luxemburg, from Belfort to
Longwy, questioning the inhabitants, studying the country. I have spent
hours and hours in cudgeling my brains in the vain hope of extracting
the slightest recollection that would have given me a gleam of light.
But all without result. There was not one fresh glimmer amid all that
darkness. Only three pictures showed through the dense fog of the past,
pictures of the place and the things which witnessed the crime: the
trees in the glade, the old chapel and the path leading through the
woods. And then there was the figure of the Emperor and . . . the figure
of the woman who killed my father."

Paul had lowered his voice. His face was distorted with grief and
loathing.

"As for her," he went on, "if I live to be a hundred, I shall see her
before my eyes as something standing out in all its details under the
full light of day. The shape of her lips, the expression of her eyes,
the color of her hair, the special character of her walk, the rhythm of
her movements, the outline of her body: all this is recorded within
myself, not as a vision which I summon up at will, but as something that
forms part of my very being. It is as though, during my delirium, all
the mysterious powers of my brain had collaborated to assimilate
entirely those hateful memories. There was a time when all this was a
morbid obsession: nowadays, I suffer only at certain hours, when the
night is coming in and I am alone. My father was murdered; and the woman
who murdered him is alive, unpunished, happy, rich, honored, pursuing
her work of hatred and destruction."

"Would you know her again if you saw her, Paul?"

"Would I know her again! I should know her among a thousand. Even if she
were disfigured by age, I should discover in the wrinkles of the old
woman that she had become the face of the younger woman who stabbed my
father to death on that September evening. Know her again! Why, I
noticed the very shade of the dress she wore! It seems incredible, but
there it is. A gray dress, with a black lace scarf over the shoulders;
and here, in the bodice, by way of a brooch, a heavy cameo, set in a
gold snake with ruby eyes. You see, Élisabeth, I have not forgotten and
I never shall forget."

He ceased. Élisabeth was crying. The past which her husband had revealed
to her was filling her with the same sense of horror and bitterness. He
drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are right not to forget," she said. "The murder will be punished
because it has to be punished. But you must not let your life be subject
to these memories of hatred. There are two of us now and we love each
other. Let us look towards the future."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Château d'Ornequin is a handsome sixteenth century building of
simple design, with four peaked turrets, tall windows with denticulated
pinnacles and a light balustrade projecting above the first story. The
esplanade is formed by well-kept lawns which surround the courtyard and
lead on the right and left to gardens, woods and orchards. One side of
these lawns ends in a broad terrace overlooking the valley of the
Liseron. On this terrace, in a line with the house, stand the majestic
ruins of a four-square castle-keep.

The whole wears a very stately air. The estate, surrounded by farms and
fields, demands active and careful working for its maintenance. It is
one of the largest in the department.

Seventeen years before, at the sale held upon the death of the last
Baron d'Ornequin, Élisabeth's father, the Comte d'Andeville, bought it
at his wife's desire. He had been married for five years and had
resigned his commission in the cavalry in order to devote himself
entirely to the woman he loved. A chance journey brought them to
Ornequin just as the sale, which had hardly been advertised in the local
press, was about to be held. Hermine d'Andeville fell in love with the
house and the domain; and the Count, who was looking for an estate whose
management would occupy his spare time effected the purchase through his
lawyer by private treaty.

During the winter that followed, he directed from Paris the work of
restoration which was necessitated by the state of disrepair in which
the former owner had left the house. M. d'Andeville wished it to be not
only comfortable but also elegant; and, little by little, he sent down
all the tapestries, pictures, objects of art and knicknacks that
adorned his house in Paris.

They were not able to take up their residence until August. They then
spent a few delightful weeks with their dear Élisabeth, at this time
four years old, and their son, Bernard, a lusty boy to whom the Countess
had given birth that same year. Hermine d'Andeville was devoted to her
children and never went beyond the confines of the park. The Count
looked after his farms and shot over his coverts, accompanied by Jérôme,
his gamekeeper, a worthy Alsatian, who had been in the late owner's
service and who knew every yard of the estate.

At the end of October, the Countess took cold; the illness that followed
was pretty serious; and the Comte d'Andeville decided to take her and
the children to the south. A fortnight later she had a relapse; and in
three days she was dead.

The Count experienced the despair which makes a man feel that life is
over and that, whatever happens, he will never again know the sense of
joy nor even an alleviation of any sort. He lived not so much for the
sake of his children as to cherish within himself the cult of her whom
he had lost and to perpetuate a memory which now became the sole reason
of his existence.

He was unable to return to the Château d'Ornequin, where he had known
too perfect a happiness; on the other hand, he would not have strangers
live there; and he ordered Jérôme to keep the doors and shutters closed
and to lock up the Countess' boudoir and bedroom in such a way that no
one could ever enter. Jérôme was also to let the farms and to collect
the tenants' rents.

This break with the past was not enough to satisfy the Count. It seems
strange in a man who existed only for the sake of his wife's memory, but
everything that reminded him of her--familiar objects, domestic
surroundings, places and landscapes--became a torture to him; and his
very children filled him with a sense of discomfort which he was unable
to overcome. He had an elder sister, a widow, living in the country, at
Chaumont. He placed his daughter Élisabeth and his son Bernard in her
charge and went abroad.

Aunt Aline was the most devoted and unselfish of women; and under her
care Élisabeth enjoyed a grave, studious and affectionate childhood in
which her heart developed together with her mind and her character. She
received the education almost of a boy, together with a strong moral
discipline. At the age of twenty, she had grown into a tall, capable,
fearless girl, whose face, inclined by nature to be melancholy,
sometimes lit up with the fondest and most innocent of smiles. It was
one of those faces which reveal beforehand the pangs and raptures held
in store by fate. The tears were never far from her eyes, which seemed
as though troubled by the spectacle of life. Her hair, with its bright
curls, lent a certain gaiety to her appearance.

At each visit that the Comte d'Andeville paid his daughter between his
wanderings he fell more and more under her charm. He took her one winter
to Spain and the next to Italy. It was in this way that she became
acquainted with Paul Delroze at Rome and met him again at Naples and
Syracuse, from which town Paul accompanied the d'Andevilles on a long
excursion through Sicily. The intimacy thus formed attached the two
young people by a bond of which they did not realize the full strength
till the time came for parting.

Like Élisabeth, Paul had been brought up in the country and, again like
her, by a fond kinswoman who strove, by dint of loving care, to make him
forget the tragedy of his childhood. Though oblivion failed to come, at
any rate she succeeded in continuing his father's work and in making of
Paul a manly and industrious lad, interested in books, life and the
doings of mankind. He went to school and, after performing his military
service, spent two years in Germany, studying some of his favorite
industrial and mechanical subjects on the spot.

Tall and well set up, with his black hair flung back from his rather
thin face, with its determined chin, he made an impression of strength
and energy.

His meeting with Élisabeth revealed to him a world of ideas and emotions
which he had hitherto disdained. For him as for her it was a sort of
intoxication mingled with amazement. Love created in them two new souls,
light and free as air, whose ready enthusiasm and expansiveness formed
a sharp contrast with the habits enforced upon them by the strict
tendency of their lives. On his return to France he asked for
Élisabeth's hand in marriage and obtained her consent.

On the day of the marriage contract, three days before the wedding, the
Comte d'Andeville announced that he would add the Château d'Ornequin to
Élisabeth's dowry. The young couple decided that they would live there
and that Paul should look about in the valleys of the neighboring
manufacturing district for some works which he could buy and manage.

They were married on Thursday, the 30th of July, at Chaumont. It was a
quiet wedding, because of the rumors of war, though the Comte
d'Andeville, on the strength of information to which he attached great
credit, declared that no war would take place. At the breakfast in which
the two families took part, Paul made the acquaintance of Bernard
d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother, a schoolboy of barely seventeen, whose
holidays had just begun. Paul took to him, because of his frank bearing
and high spirits; and it was arranged that Bernard should join them in a
few days at Ornequin. At one o'clock Élisabeth and Paul left Chaumont by
train. They were going hand-in-hand to the château where the first years
of their marriage were to be spent and perhaps all that happy and
peaceful future which opens up before the dazzling eyes of lovers.

It was half-past six o'clock when they saw Jérôme's wife standing at the
foot of the steps. Rosalie was a stout, motherly body with ruddy,
mottled cheeks and a cheerful face.

Before dining, they took a hurried turn in the garden and went over the
house. Élisabeth could not contain her emotion. Though there were no
memories to excite her, she seemed, nevertheless, to rediscover
something of the mother whom she had known for such a little while,
whose features she could not remember and who had here spent the last
happy days of her life. For her, the shade of the dead woman still trod
those garden paths. The great, green lawns exhaled a special fragrance.
The leaves on the trees rustled in the wind with a whisper which she
seemed already to have heard in that same spot and at the same hour of
the day, with her mother listening beside her.

"You seem depressed, Élisabeth," said Paul.

"Not depressed, but unsettled. I feel as though my mother were welcoming
us to this place where she thought she was to live and where we have
come with the same intention. And I somehow feel anxious. It is as
though I were a stranger, an intruder, disturbing the rest and peace of
the house. Only think! My mother has been here all alone for such a
time! My father would never come here; and I was telling myself that we
have no right to come here either, with our indifference for everything
that is not ourselves."

Paul smiled:

"Élisabeth, my darling, you are simply feeling that impression of
uneasiness which one always feels on arriving at a new place in the
evening."

"I don't know," she said. "I daresay you are right. . . . But I can't
shake off the uneasiness; and that is so unlike me. Do you believe in
presentiments, Paul?"

"No, do you?"

"No, I don't either," she said, laughing and giving him her lips.

They were surprised to find that the rooms of the house looked as if
they had been constantly inhabited. By the Count's orders, everything
had remained as it was in the far-off days of Hermine d'Andeville. The
knickknacks were there, in the same places, and every piece of
embroidery, every square of lace, every miniature, all the handsome
eighteenth century chairs, all the Flemish tapestry, all the furniture
which the Count had collected in the old days to add to the beauty of
his house. They were thus entering from the first into a charming and
home-like setting.

After dinner they returned to the gardens, where they strolled to and
fro in silence, with their arms entwined round each other's waists. From
the terrace they looked down upon the dark valley, with a few lights
gleaming here and there. The old castle-keep raised its massive ruins
against a pale sky, in which a remnant of vague light still lingered.

"Paul," said Élisabeth, in a low voice, "did you notice, as we went over
the house, a door closed with a great padlock?"

"In the middle of the chief corridor, near your bedroom, you mean?"

"Yes. That was my poor mother's boudoir. My father insisted that it
should be locked, as well as the bedroom leading out of it; and Jérôme
put a padlock on the door and sent him the key. No one has set foot in
it since. It is just as my mother left it. All her own things--her
unfinished work, her books--are there. And on the wall facing the door,
between the two windows that have always been kept shut, is her
portrait, which my father had ordered a year before of a great painter
of his acquaintance, a full-length portrait which, I understand, is the
very image of her. Her _prie-Dieu_ is beside it. This morning my father
gave me the key of the boudoir and I promised him that I would kneel
down on the _prie-Dieu_ and say a prayer before the portrait of the
mother whom I hardly knew and whose features I cannot imagine, for I
never even had a photograph of her."

"Really? How was that?"

"You see, my father loved my mother so much that, in obedience to a
feeling which he himself was unable to explain, he wished to be alone in
his recollection of her. He wanted his memories to be hidden deep down
in himself, so that nothing would remind him of her except his own will
and his grief. He almost begged my pardon for it this morning, said
that perhaps he had done me a wrong; and that is why he wants us to go
together, Paul, on this first evening, and pray before the picture of my
poor dead mother."

"Let us go now, Élisabeth."

Her hand trembled in her husband's hand as they climbed the stairs to
the first floor. Lamps had been lighted all along the passage. They
stopped in front of a tall, wide door surmounted with gilded carvings.

"Unfasten the lock, Paul," said Élisabeth.

Her voice shook as she spoke. She handed him the key. He removed the
padlock and seized the door-handle. But Élisabeth suddenly gripped her
husband's arm:

"One moment, Paul, one moment! I feel so upset. This is the first time
that I shall look on my mother's face . . . and you, my dearest, are
beside me. . . . I feel as if I were becoming a little girl again."

"Yes," he said, pressing her hand passionately, "a little girl and a
grown woman in one."

Comforted by the clasp of his hand, she released hers and whispered:

"We will go in now, Paul darling."

He opened the door and returned to the passage to take a lamp from a
bracket on the wall and place it on the table. Meanwhile, Élisabeth had
walked across the room and was standing in front of the picture. Her
mother's face was in the shadow and she altered the position of the
lamp so as to throw the full light upon it.

"How beautiful she is, Paul!"

He went up to the picture and raised his head. Élisabeth sank to her
knees on the _prie-Dieu_. But presently, hearing Paul turn round, she
looked up at him and was stupefied by what she saw. He was standing
motionless, livid in the face, his eyes wide open, as though gazing at
the most frightful vision.

"Paul," she cried, "what's the matter?"

He began to make for the door, stepping backwards, unable to take his
eyes from the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville. He was staggering like a
drunken man; and his arms beat the air around him.

"That . . . that . . ." he stammered, hoarsely.

"Paul," Élisabeth entreated, "what is it? What are you trying to say?"

"That . . . that is the woman who killed my father!"



CHAPTER III

THE CALL TO ARMS


The hideous accusation was followed by an awful silence. Élisabeth was
now standing in front of her husband, striving to understand his words,
which had not yet acquired their real meaning for her, but which hurt
her as though she had been stabbed to the heart.

She moved towards him and, with her eyes in his, spoke in a voice so low
that he could hardly hear:

"You surely can't mean what you said, Paul? The thing is too monstrous!"

He replied in the same tone:

"Yes, it is a monstrous thing. I don't believe it myself yet. I refuse
to believe it."

"Then--it's a mistake, isn't it?--Confess it, you've made a mistake."

She implored him with all the distress that filled her being, as though
she were hoping to make him yield. He fixed his eyes again on the
accursed portrait, over his wife's shoulder, and shivered from head to
foot:

"Oh, it is she!" he declared, clenching his fists. "It is she--I
recognize her--it is the woman who killed my----"

A shock of protest ran through her body; and, beating her breast, she
cried:

"My mother! My mother a murderess! My mother, whom my father used to
worship and went on worshiping! My mother, who used to hold me on her
knee and kiss me!--I have forgotten everything about her except that,
her kisses and her caresses! And you tell me that she is a murderess!"

"It is true."

"Oh, Paul, you must not say anything so horrible! How can you be
positive, such a long time after? You were only a child; and you saw so
little of the woman . . . hardly a few minutes . . ."

"I saw more of her than it seems humanly possible to see," exclaimed
Paul, loudly. "From the moment of the murder her image never left my
sight. I have tried to shake it off at times, as one tries to shake off
a nightmare; but I could not. And the image is there, hanging on the
wall. As sure as I live, it is there; I know it as I should know your
image after twenty years. It is she . . . why, look, on her breast, that
brooch set in a gold snake! . . . a cameo, as I told you, and the
snake's eyes . . . two rubies! . . . and the black lace scarf around the
shoulders! It's she, I tell you, it's the woman I saw!"

A growing rage excited him to frenzy; and he shook his fist at the
portrait of Hermine d'Andeville.

"Hush!" cried Élisabeth, under the torment of his words. "Hold your
tongue! I won't allow you to . . ."

She tried to put her hand on his mouth to compel him to silence. But
Paul made a movement of repulsion, as though he were shrinking from his
wife's touch; and the movement was so abrupt and so instinctive that she
fell to the ground sobbing while he, incensed, exasperated by his sorrow
and hatred, impelled by a sort of terrified hallucination that drove him
back to the door, shouted:

"Look at her! Look at her wicked mouth, her pitiless eyes! She is
thinking of the murder! . . . I see her, I see her! . . . She goes up to
my father . . . she leads him away . . . she raises her arm . . . and
she kills him! . . . Oh, the wretched, monstrous woman! . . ."

He rushed from the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

Paul spent the night in the park, running like a madman wherever the
dark paths led him, or flinging himself, when tired out, on the grass
and weeping, weeping endlessly.

Paul Delroze had known no suffering save from his memory of the murder,
a chastened suffering which, nevertheless, at certain periods became
acute until it smarted like a fresh wound. This time the pain was so
great and so unexpected that, notwithstanding his usual self-mastery and
his well-balanced mind, he utterly lost his head. His thoughts, his
actions, his attitudes, the words which he yelled into the darkness
were those of a man who has parted with his self-control.

One thought and one alone kept returning to his seething brain, in which
his ideas and impressions whirled like leaves in the wind; one terrible
thought:

"I know the woman who killed my father; and that woman's daughter is the
woman whom I love."

Did he still love her? No doubt, he was desperately mourning a happiness
which he knew to be shattered; but did he still love Élisabeth? Could he
love Hermine d'Andeville's daughter?

When he went indoors at daybreak and passed Élisabeth's room, his heart
beat no faster than before. His hatred of the murderess destroyed all
else that might stir within him: love, affection, longing, or even the
merest human pity.

The torpor into which he sank for a few hours relaxed his nerves a
little, but did not change his mental attitude. Perhaps, on the
contrary, and without even thinking about it, he was still more
unwilling than before to meet Élisabeth. And yet he wanted to know, to
ascertain, to gather all the essential particulars and to make quite
certain before taking the resolve that would decide the great tragedy of
his life in one way or another.

Above all, he must question Jérôme and his wife, whose evidence was of
no small value, owing to the fact that they had known the Comtesse
d'Andeville. Certain matters concerning the dates, for instance, might
be cleared up forthwith.

He found them in their lodge, both of them greatly excited, Jérôme with
a newspaper in his hand and Rosalie making gestures of dismay.

"It's settled, sir," cried Jérôme. "You can be sure of it: it's coming!"

"What?" asked Paul.

"Mobilization, sir, the call to arms. You'll see it does. I saw some
gendarmes, friends of mine, and they told me. The posters are ready."

Paul remarked, absent-mindedly:

"The posters are always ready."

"Yes, but they're going to stick them up at once, you'll see, sir. Just
look at the paper. Those swine--you'll forgive me, sir, but it's the
only word for them--those swine want war. Austria would be willing to
negotiate, but in the meantime the others have been mobilizing for
several days. Proof is, they won't let you cross into their country any
more. And worse: yesterday they destroyed a French railway station, not
far from here, and pulled up the rails. Read it for yourself, sir!"

Paul skimmed through the stop-press telegrams, but, though he saw that
they were serious, war seemed to him such an unlikely thing that he did
not pay much attention to them.

"It'll be settled all right," he said. "That's just their way of
talking, with their hand on the sword-hilt; but I can't believe . . ."

"You're wrong, sir," Rosalie muttered.

He no longer listened, thinking only of the tragedy of his fate and
casting about for the best means of obtaining the necessary replies from
Jérôme. But he was not able to contain himself any longer and he
broached the subject frankly:

"I daresay you know, Jérôme, that madame and I have been to the Comtesse
d'Andeville's room."

The statement produced an extraordinary effect upon the keeper and his
wife, as though it had been a sacrilege to enter that room so long kept
locked, the mistress' room, as they called it among themselves.

"You don't mean that, sir!" Rosalie blurted out.

And Jérôme added:

"No, of course not, for I sent the only key of the padlock, a safety-key
it was, to Monsieur le Comte."

"He gave it us yesterday morning," said Paul.

And, without troubling further about their amazement, he proceeded
straightaway to put his questions:

"There is a portrait of the Comtesse d'Andeville between the two
windows. When was it hung there?"

Jérôme did not reply at once. He thought for a moment, looked at his
wife, and then said:

"Why, that's easily answered. It was when Monsieur le Comte sent all his
furniture to the house . . . before they moved in."

"When was that?"

Paul's agony was unendurable during the three or four seconds before the
reply.

"Well?" he asked.

When the reply came at last it was decisive:

"Well, it was in the spring of 1898."

"Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight!"

Paul repeated the words in a dull voice: 1898 was the year of his
father's murder!

Without stopping to reflect, with the coolness of an examining
magistrate who does not swerve from the line which he has laid out, he
asked:

"So the Comte and Comtesse d'Andeville arrived . . ."

"Monsieur le Comte and Madame le Comtesse arrived at the castle on the
28th of August, 1898, and left for the south on the 24th of October."

Paul now knew the truth, for his father was murdered on the 19th of
September. And all the circumstances which depended on that truth, which
explained it in its main details or which proceeded from it at once
appeared to him. He remembered that his father was on friendly terms
with the Comte d'Andeville. He said to himself that his father, in the
course of his journey in Alsace, must have learnt that his friend
d'Andeville was living in Lorraine and must have contemplated paying him
a surprise visit. He reckoned up the distance between Ornequin and
Strasburg, a distance which corresponded with the time spent in the
train. And he asked:

"How far is this from the frontier?"

"Three miles and three-quarters, sir."

"On the other side, at no great distance, there's a little German town,
is there not?"

"Yes, sir, Èbrecourt."

"Is there a short-cut to the frontier?"

"Yes, sir, for about half-way: a path at the other end of the park."

"Through the woods?"

"Through Monsieur le Comte's woods."

"And in those woods . . ."

To acquire total, absolute certainty, that certainty which comes not
from an interpretation of the facts but from the facts themselves, which
would stand out visible and palpable, all that he had to do was to put
the last question: in those woods was not there a little chapel in the
middle of a glade? Paul Delroze did not put the question. Perhaps he
thought it too precise, perhaps he feared lest it should induce the
gamekeeper to entertain thoughts and comparisons which the nature of the
conversation was already sufficient to warrant. He merely asked:

"Was the Comtesse d'Andeville away at all during the six weeks which she
spent at Ornequin? For two or three days, I mean?"

"No, sir, Madame le Comtesse never left the grounds."

"She kept to the park?"

"Yes, sir. Monsieur le Comte used to drive almost every afternoon to
Corvigny or in the valley, but Madame la Comtesse never went beyond the
park and the woods."

Paul knew what he wanted to know. Not caring what Jérôme and his wife
might think, he did not trouble to find an excuse for his strange series
of apparently disconnected questions. He left the lodge and walked away.

Eager though he was to complete his inquiry, he postponed the
investigations which he intended to pursue outside the park. It was as
though he dreaded to face the final proof, which had really become
superfluous after those with which chance had supplied him. He therefore
went back to the château and, at lunch-time, resolved to accept this
inevitable meeting with Élisabeth. But his wife's maid came to him in
the drawing-room and said that her mistress sent her excuses. Madame was
not feeling very well and asked did monsieur mind if she took her lunch
in her own room. He understood that she wished to leave him entirely
free, refusing, on her side, to appeal to him on behalf of a mother whom
she respected and, if necessary, submitting beforehand to whatever
eventual decision her husband might make.

Lunching by himself under the eyes of the butler and footman waiting at
table, he felt in the utmost depths of his heart that his happiness was
gone and that Élisabeth and he, thanks to circumstances for which
neither of them was responsible, had on the very day of their marriage
become enemies whom no power on earth could bring together. Certainly,
he bore her no hatred and did not reproach her with her mother's crime;
but unconsciously he was angry with her, as for a fault, inasmuch as
she was her mother's daughter.

For two hours after lunch he remained closeted with the portrait in the
boudoir: a tragic interview which he wished to have with the murderess,
so as to fill his eyes with her accursed image and give fresh strength
to his memories. He examined every slightest detail. He studied the
cameo, the swan with unfurled wings which it represented, the chasing of
the gold snake that formed the setting, the position of the rubies and
also the draping of the lace around the shoulders, not to speak of the
shape of the mouth and the color of the hair and the outline of the
face.

It was undoubtedly the woman whom he had seen that September evening. A
corner of the picture bore the painter's signature; and underneath, on
the frame, was a scroll with the inscription:

      Portrait of the Comtesse H.

No doubt the portrait had been exhibited with that discreet reference to
the Comtesse Hermine.

"Now, then," said Paul. "A few minutes more, and the whole past will
come to life again. I have found the criminal; I have now only to find
the place of the crime. If the chapel is there, in the woods, the truth
will be complete."

He went for the truth resolutely. He feared it less now, because it
could no longer escape his grasp. And yet how his heart beat, with
great, painful throbs, and how he loathed the idea of taking the road
leading to that other road along which his father had passed sixteen
years before!

A vague movement of Jérôme's hand had told him which way to go. He
crossed the park in the direction of the frontier, bearing to his left
and passing a lodge. At the entrance to the woods was a long avenue of
fir-trees down which he went. Four hundred yards farther it branched
into three narrow avenues. Two of these proved to end in impenetrable
thickets. The third led to the top of a mound, from which he descended,
still keeping to his left, by another avenue of fir-trees.

In selecting this road, Paul realized that it was just this avenue of
firs the appearance of which aroused in him, through some untold
resemblance of shape and arrangement, memories clear enough to guide his
steps. It ran straight ahead for some time and then took a sudden turn
into a cluster of tall beeches whose leafy tops met overhead. Then the
road sloped upwards; and, at the end of the dark tunnel through which he
was walking, Paul perceived the glare of light that points to an open
space.

The anguish of it all made his knees give way beneath him; and he had to
make an effort to proceed. Was it the glade in which his father had
received his death-blow? The more that luminous space became revealed to
his eyes, the more did he feel penetrated with a profound conviction. As
in the room with the portrait, the past was recovering the very aspect
of the truth in and before him.

It was the same glade, surrounded by a ring of trees that presented the
same picture and covered with a carpet of grass and moss which the same
paths divided as of old. The same glimpse of sky was above him, outlined
by the capricious masses of foliage. And there, on his left, guarded by
two yew-trees which Paul recognized, was the chapel.

The chapel! The little old massive chapel, whose lines had etched
themselves like furrows into his brain! Trees grow, become taller, alter
their form. The appearance of a glade is liable to change. Its paths
will sometimes interlock in a different fashion. A man's memory can play
him a trick. But a building of granite and cement is immutable. It takes
centuries to give it the green-gray color that is the mark which time
sets upon the stone; and this bloom of age never alters. The chapel that
stood there, displaying a grimy-paned rose-window in its east front, was
undoubtedly that from which the German Emperor had stepped, followed by
the woman who, ten minutes later, committed the murder.

Paul walked to the door. He wanted to revisit the place in which his
father had spoken to him for the last time. It was a moment of tense
emotion. The same little roof which had sheltered their bicycles
projected at the back; and the door was the same, with its great rusty
clamps and bars.

He stood on the single step that led to it, raised the latch and pushed
the door. But as he was about to enter, two men, hidden in the shadow on
either side, sprang at him.

One of them aimed a revolver full in his face. By some miracle, Paul
noticed the gleaming barrel of the weapon just in time to stoop before
the bullet could strike him. A second shot rang out, but he had hustled
the man and now snatched the revolver from his hand, while his other
aggressor threatened him with a dagger. He stepped backwards out of the
chapel, with outstretched arm, and twice pulled the trigger. Each time
there was a click but no shot. The mere fact, however, of his firing at
the two scoundrels terrified them, and they turned tail and made off as
fast as they could.

Bewildered by the suddenness of the attack, Paul stood for a second
irresolute. Then he fired at the fugitives again, but to no purpose. The
revolver, which was obviously loaded in only two chambers, clicked but
did not go off.

He then started running after his assailants; and he remembered that
long ago the Emperor and his companion, on leaving the chapel, had taken
the same direction, which was evidently that of the frontier.

Almost at the same moment the men, seeing themselves pursued, plunged
into the wood and slipped in among the trees; but Paul, who was swifter
of foot, rapidly gained ground on them, all the more so as he had gone
round a hollow filled with bracken and brambles into which the others
had ventured.

Suddenly one of them gave a shrill whistle, probably a warning to some
accomplice. Soon after they disappeared behind a line of extremely dense
bushes. When he had passed through these, Paul saw at a distance of
sixty yards before him a high wall which seemed to shut in the woods on
every side. The men were half-way to it; and he perceived that they were
making straight for a part of the wall containing a small door.

Paul put on a spurt so as to reach the door before they had time to open
it. The bare ground enabled him to increase his speed, whereas the men,
who were obviously tired, had reduced theirs.

"I've got them, the ruffians!" he murmured. "I shall at last know . . ."

A second whistle sounded, followed by a guttural shout. He was now
within twenty yards of them and could hear them speak.

"I've got them, I've got them!" he repeated, with fierce delight.

And he made up his mind to strike one of them in the face with the
barrel of his revolver and to spring at the other's throat.

But, before they even reached the wall, the door was pushed open from
the outside and a third man appeared and let them through.

Paul flung away the revolver; and his impetus was such and the effort
which he made so great that he managed to seize the door and draw it to
him.

The door gave way. And what he then saw scared him to such a degree that
he started backwards and did not even dream of defending himself against
this fresh attack. The third man--Oh, hideous nightmare! Could it
moreover be anything but a nightmare?--the third ruffian was raising a
knife against him; and Paul knew his face . . . it was a face resembling
the one which he had seen before, a man's face and not a woman's, but
the same sort of face, undoubtedly the same sort: a face marked by
fifteen additional years and by an even harder and more wicked
expression, but the same sort of face, the same sort!

And the man stabbed Paul, even as the woman of fifteen years ago, even
as she who was since dead had stabbed Paul's father.

       *       *       *       *       *

Paul Delroze staggered, but rather as the result of the nervous shock
caused by the sudden appearance of this ghost of the past; for the blade
of the dagger, striking the button on the shoulder-strap of his
shooting-jacket, broke into splinters. Dazed and misty-eyed, he heard
the sound of the door closing, the grating of the key in the lock and
lastly the hum of a motor car starting on the other side of the wall.
When Paul recovered from his torpor there was nothing left for him to
do. The man and his two confederates were out of reach.

Besides, for the moment he was utterly absorbed in the mystery of the
likeness between the figure from the past and that which he had just
seen. He could think of but one thing:

"The Comtesse d'Andeville is dead; and here she is revived under the
aspect of a man whose face is the very face which she would have to-day.
Is it the face of some relation, of a brother of whom I never heard, a
twin perhaps?"

And he reflected:

"After all, am I not mistaken? Am I not the victim of an hallucination,
which would be only natural in the crisis through which I am passing?
How do I know for certain that there is any connection between the
present and the past? I must have a proof."

The proof was ready to his hand; and it was so strong that Paul was not
able to doubt for much longer. He caught sight of the remains of the
dagger in the grass and picked up the handle. On it four letters were
engraved as with a red-hot iron: an H, an E, an R and an M.

H, E, R, M; the first four letters of Hermine! . . . At this moment,
while he was staring at the letters which were to him so full of
meaning, at this moment, a moment which Paul was never to forget, the
bell of a church nearby began to ring in the most unusual manner: a
regular, monotonous, uninterrupted ringing, which sounded at once brisk
and unspeakably sinister.

"The tocsin," he muttered to himself, without attaching the full sense
to the word. And he added: "A fire somewhere, I expect."

A few minutes later Paul had succeeded in climbing over the wall by
means of the projecting branches of a tree. He found a further stretch
of woods, crossed by a forest road. He followed the tracks of a motor
car along this road and reached the frontier within an hour.

A squad of German constabulary were sitting round the foot of the
frontier post; and he saw a white road with Uhlans trotting along it. At
the end of it was a cluster of red roofs and gardens. Was this the
little town where his father and he had hired their bicycles that day,
the little town of Èbrecourt?

The melancholy bell never ceased. He noticed that the sound came from
France; also that another bell was ringing somewhere, likewise in
France, and a third from the direction of the Liseron; and all three on
the same hurried note, as though sending forth a wild appeal around
them.

He repeated, anxiously:

"The tocsin! . . . The alarm! . . . And it's being passed on from church
to church. . . . Can it mean that . . ."

But he drove away the terrifying thought. No, his ears were misleading
him; or else it was the echo of a single bell thrown back in the hollow
valleys and ringing over the plains.

Meanwhile he was gazing at the white road which issued from the little
German town, and he observed that a constant stream of horsemen was
arriving there and spreading across-country. Also a detachment of French
dragoons appeared on the ridge of a hill. The officer in command scanned
the horizon through his field-glasses and then trotted off with his men.

Thereupon, unable to go any farther, Paul walked back to the wall which
he had climbed and found that the wall was prolonged around the whole of
the estate, including the woods and the park. He learnt besides from an
old peasant that it was built some twelve years ago, which explained why
Paul had never found the chapel in the course of his explorations along
the frontier. Once only, he now remembered, some one had told him of a
chapel; but it was one situated inside a private estate; and his
suspicions had not been aroused.

While thus following the road that skirted the property, he came nearer
to the village of Ornequin, whose church suddenly rose at the end of a
clearing in the wood. The bell, which he had not heard for the last
moment or two, now rang out again with great distinctness. It was the
bell of Ornequin. It was frail, shrill, poignant as a lament and more
solemn than a passing-bell, for all its hurry and lightness.

Paul walked towards the sound. A charming village, all aflower with
geraniums and Marguerites, stood gathered about its church. Silent
groups were studying a white notice posted on the Mayor's office. Paul
stepped forward and read the heading:

      "Mobilization Order."

At any other period of his life these words would have struck him with
all their gloomy and terrific meaning. But the crisis through which he
was passing was too powerful to allow room for any great emotion within
him. He scarcely even contemplated the unavoidable consequences of the
proclamation. Very well, the country was mobilizing: the mobilization
would begin at midnight. . . . Very well, every one must go; he would
go. . . . And this assumed in his mind the form of so imperative an act,
the proportions of a duty which so completely exceeded every minor
obligation and every petty individual need that he felt, on the
contrary, a sort of relief at thus receiving from the outside the order
that dictated his conduct. There was no hesitation possible. His duty
lay before him: he must go.

Go? In that case why not go at once? What was the use of returning to
the house, seeing Élisabeth again, seeking a painful and futile
explanation, granting or refusing a forgiveness which his wife did not
ask of him, but which the daughter of Hermine d'Andeville did not
deserve?

In front of the principal inn a diligence stood waiting, marked,
"Corvigny-Ornequin Railway Service." A few passengers were getting in.
Without giving a further thought to a position which events were
developing in their own way, he climbed into the diligence.

At the Corvigny railway station he was told that his train would not
leave for half an hour and that it was the last, as the evening train,
which connected with the night express on the main line, was not
running. Paul took his ticket and then asked his way to the jobmaster of
the village. He found that the man owned two motor cars and arranged
with him to have the larger of the two sent at once to the Château
d'Ornequin and placed at Mme. Paul Delroze's disposal.

And he wrote a short note to his wife:

      "_Élisabeth:_

      "Circumstances are so serious that I must ask you to
      leave Ornequin. The trains have become very uncertain;
      and I am sending you a motor car which will take you
      to-night to your aunt at Chaumont. I suppose that the
      servants will go with you and that, if there should be
      war (which seems to me very unlikely, in spite of
      everything), Jérôme and Rosalie will shut up the house
      and go to Corvigny.

      "As for me, I am joining my regiment. Whatever the
      future may hold in store for us, Élisabeth, I shall
      never forget the woman who was my bride and who bears
      my name.

      "PAUL DELROZE."



CHAPTER IV

A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH


It was nine o'clock; there was no holding the position; and the colonel
was furious.

He had brought his regiment in the middle of the night--it was in the
first month of the war, on the 22nd of August, 1914--to the junction of
those three roads one of which ran from Belgian Luxemburg. The Germans
had taken possession of the lines of the frontier, seven or eight miles
away, on the day before. The general commanding the division had
expressly ordered that they were to hold the enemy in check until
mid-day, that is to say, until the whole division was able to come up
with them. The regiment was supported by a battery of seventy-fives.

The colonel had drawn up his men in a dip in the ground. The battery was
likewise hidden. And yet, at the first gleams of dawn, both regiment and
battery were located by the enemy and lustily shelled.

They moved a mile or more to the right. Five minutes later the shells
fell and killed half a dozen men and two officers.

A fresh move was effected, followed in ten minutes by a fresh attack.
The colonel pursued his tactics. In an hour there were thirty men killed
or wounded. One of the guns was destroyed. And it was only nine o'clock.

"Damn it all!" cried the colonel. "How can they spot us like this?
There's witchcraft in it."

He was hiding, with his majors, the captain of artillery and a few
dispatch-riders, behind a bank from above which the eye took in a rather
large stretch of undulating upland. At no great distance, on the left,
was an abandoned village, with some scattered farms in front of it, and
there was not an enemy to be seen in all that deserted extent of
country. There was nothing to show where the hail of shells was coming
from. The seventy-fives had "searched" one or two points with no result.
The firing continued.

"Three more hours to hold out," growled the colonel. "We shall do it;
but we shall lose a quarter of the regiment."

At that moment a shell whistled between the officers and the
dispatch-riders and plumped down into the ground. All sprang back,
awaiting the explosion. But one man, a corporal, ran forward, lifted the
shell and examined it.

"You're mad, corporal!" roared the colonel. "Drop that shell and be
quick about it."

The corporal replaced the projectile quietly in the hole which it had
made; and then without hurrying, went up to the colonel, brought his
heels together and saluted:

"Excuse me, sir, but I wanted to see by the fuse how far off the enemy's
guns are. It's two miles and fifty yards. That may be worth knowing."

"By Jove! And suppose it had gone off?"

"Ah, well, sir, nothing venture, nothing have!"

"True, but, all the same, it was a bit thick! What's your name?"

"Paul Delroze, sir, corporal in the third company."

"Well, Corporal Delroze, I congratulate you on your pluck and I dare say
you'll soon have your sergeant's stripes. Meanwhile, take my advice and
don't do it again. . . ."

He was interrupted by the sudden bursting of a shrapnel-shell. One of
the dispatch-riders standing near him fell, hit in the chest, and an
officer staggered under the weight of the earth that spattered against
him.

"Come," said the colonel, when things had restored themselves, "there's
nothing to do but bow before the storm. Take the best shelter you can
find; and let's wait."

Paul Delroze stepped forward once more.

"Forgive me, sir, for interfering in what's not my business; but we
might, I think, avoid . . ."

"Avoid the peppering? Of course, I have only to change our position
again. But, as we should be located again at once. . . . There, my lad,
go back to your place."

Paul insisted:

"It might be a question, sir, not of changing our position, but of
changing the enemy's fire."

"Really!" said the colonel, a little sarcastically, but nevertheless
impressed by Paul's coolness. "And do you know a way of doing it?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"Give me twenty minutes, sir, and by that time the shells will be
falling in another direction."

The colonel could not help smiling:

"Capital! You'll make them drop where you please, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir."

"On that beet-field over there, fifteen hundred yards to the right?"

"Yes, sir."

The artillery-captain, who had been listening to the conversation, made
a jest in his turn:

"While you are about it, corporal, as you have already given me the
distance and I know the direction more or less, couldn't you give it to
me exactly, so that I may lay my guns right and smash the German
batteries?"

"That will be a longer job, sir, and much more difficult," said Paul.
"Still, I'll try. If you don't mind examining the horizon, at eleven
o'clock precisely, towards the frontier, I'll let off a signal."

"What sort of signal?"

"I don't know, sir. Three rockets, I expect."

"But your signal will be no use unless you send it off immediately above
the enemy's position."

"Just so, sir."

"And, to do that, you'll have to know it."

"I shall, sir."

"And to get there."

"I shall get there, sir."

Paul saluted, turned on his heel and, before the officers had time
either to approve or to object, he slipped along the foot of the slope
at a run, plunged on the left down a sort of hollow way, with bristling
edges of brambles, and disappeared from sight.

"That's a queer fellow," said the colonel. "I wonder what he really
means to do."

The young soldier's pluck and decision disposed the colonel in his
favor; and, though he felt only a limited confidence in the result of
the enterprise, he could not help looking at his watch, time after time,
during the minutes which he spent with his officers, behind the feeble
rampart of a hay-stack. They were terrible minutes, in which the
commanding officer did not think for a moment of the danger that
threatened himself, but only of the danger of the men in his charge,
whom he looked upon as children.

He saw them around him, lying at full length on the stubble, with their
knapsacks over their heads, or snugly ensconced in the copses, or
squatting in the hollows in the ground. The iron hurricane increased in
violence. It came rushing down like a furious hail bent upon hastily
completing its work of destruction. Men suddenly leapt to their feet,
spun on their heels and fell motionless, amid the yells of the wounded,
the shouts of the soldiers exchanging remarks and even jokes and, over
everything, the incessant thunder of the bursting bomb-shells.

And then, suddenly, silence! Total, definite silence, an infinite lull
in the air and on the ground, giving a sort of ineffable relief!

The colonel expressed his delight by bursting into a laugh:

"By Jupiter, Corporal Delroze knows his way about! The crowning
achievement would be for the beet-field to be shelled, as he promised."

He had not finished speaking when a shell exploded fifteen hundred yards
to the right, not in the beet-field, but a little in front of it. The
second went too far. The third found the spot. And the bombardment began
with a will.

There was something about the performance of the task which the corporal
had set himself that was at once so astounding and so mathematically
accurate that the colonel and his officers had hardly a doubt that he
would carry it out to the end and that, notwithstanding the
insurmountable obstacles, he would succeed in giving the signal agreed
upon.

They never ceased sweeping the horizon with their field-glasses, while
the enemy redoubled his efforts against the beet-field.

At five minutes past eleven, a red rocket went up. It appeared a good
deal farther to the right than they would have suspected. And it was
followed by two others.

Through his telescope the artillery-captain soon discovered a
church-steeple that just showed above a valley which was itself
invisible among the rise and fall of the plateau; and the spire of the
steeple protruded so very little that it might well have been taken for
a tree standing by itself. A rapid glance at the map showed that it was
the village of Brumoy.

Knowing, from the shell examined by the corporal, the exact distance of
the German batteries, the captain telephoned his instructions to his
lieutenant. Half an hour later the German batteries were silenced; and
as a fourth rocket had gone up the seventy-fives continued to bombard
the church as well as the village and its immediate neighborhood.

At a little before twelve, the regiment was joined by a cyclists company
riding ahead of the division. The order was given to advance at all
costs.

The regiment advanced, encountering no resistance, as it approached
Brumoy, except a few rifle shots. The enemy's rearguard was falling
back.

The village was in ruins, with some of its houses still burning, and
displayed a most incredible disorder of corpses, of wounded men, of dead
horses, demolished guns and battered caissons and baggage-wagons. A
whole brigade had been surprised at the moment, when, feeling certain
that it had cleared the ground, it was about to march to the attack.

But a shout came from the top of the church, the front and nave of which
had fallen in and presented an appearance of indescribable chaos. Only
the tower, perforated by gun-fire and blackened by the smoke from some
burning joists, still remained standing, bearing by some miracle of
equilibrium, the slender stone spire with which it was crowned. With his
body leaning out of this spire was a peasant, waving his arms and
shouting to attract attention.

The officers recognized Paul Delroze.

Picking their way through the rubbish, our men climbed the staircase
that led to the platform of the tower. Here, heaped up against the
little door admitting to the spire, were the bodies of eight Germans;
and the door, which was demolished and had dropped crosswise, barred the
entrance in such a way that it had to be chopped to pieces before Paul
could be released.

Toward the end of the afternoon, when it was manifest that the obstacles
to the pursuit of the enemy were too serious to be overcome, the colonel
embraced Corporal Delroze in front of the regiment mustered in the
square.

"Let's speak of your reward first," he said. "I shall recommend you for
the military medal; and you will be sure to get it. And now, my lad,
tell your story."

And Paul stood answering questions in the middle of the circle formed
around him by the officers and the non-commissioned officers of each
company.

"Why, it's very simple, sir," he said. "We were being spied upon."

"Obviously; but who was the spy and where was he?"

"I learnt that by accident. Beside the position which we occupied this
morning, there was a village, was there not, with a church?"

"Yes, but I had the village evacuated when I arrived; and there was no
one in the church."

"If there was no one in the church, sir, why did the weather-vane point
the wind coming from the east, when it was blowing from the west? And
why, when we changed our position, was the vane pointed in our
direction?"

"Are you sure of that?"

"Yes, sir. And that was why, after obtaining your leave, I did not
hesitate to slip into the church and to enter the steeple as stealthily
as I could. I was not mistaken. There was a man there whom I managed to
overmaster, not without difficulty."

"The scoundrel! A Frenchman?"

"No, sir, a German dressed up as a peasant."

"He shall be shot."

"No, sir, please. I promised him his life."

"Never!"

"Well, you see, sir, I had to find out how he was keeping the enemy
informed."

"Well?"

"Oh, it was simple enough! The church has a clock, facing the north, of
which we could not see the dial, where we were. From the inside, our
friend worked the hands so that the big hand, resting by turns on three
or four figures, announced the exact distance at which we were from the
church, in the direction pointed by the vane. This is what I next did
myself; and the enemy at once, redirecting his fire by my indications,
began conscientiously to shell the beet-field."

"He did," said the colonel, laughing.

"All that remained for me to do was to move on to the other
observation-post, where the spy's messages were received. There I would
learn the essential details which the spy himself did not know; I mean,
where the enemy's batteries were hidden. I therefore ran to this place;
and it was only on arriving here that I saw those batteries and a whole
German brigade posted at the very foot of the church which did the duty
of signaling-station."

"But that was a mad piece of recklessness! Didn't they fire on you?"

"I had put on the spy's clothes, sir, _their_ spy's. I can speak German,
I knew the pass-word and only one of them knew the spy and that was the
officer on observation-duty. Without the least suspicion, the general
commanding the brigade sent me to him as soon as I told him that the
French had discovered me and that I had managed to escape them."

"And you had the cheek . . . ?"

"I had to, sir; and besides I held all the trump cards. The officer
suspected nothing; and, when I reached the platform from which he was
sending his signals, I had no difficulty in attacking him and reducing
him to silence. My business was done and I had only to give you the
signals agreed upon."

"Only that! In the midst of six or seven thousand men!"

"I had promised you, sir, and it was eleven o'clock. The platform had on
it all the apparatus required for sending day or night signals. Why
shouldn't I use it? I lit a rocket, followed by a second and a third and
then a fourth; and the battle commenced."

"But those rockets were indications to draw our fire upon the very
steeple where you were! It was you we were firing on!"

"Oh, I assure you, sir, one doesn't think of those things at such
moments! I welcomed the first shell that struck the church. And then the
enemy left me hardly any time for reflection. Half-a-dozen fellows at
once came climbing the tower. I accounted for some of them with my
revolver; but a second assault came and, later on, still another. I had
to take refuge behind the door that closes the spire. When they had
broken it down, it served me as a barricade; and, as I had the arms and
ammunition which I had taken from my first assailants and was
inaccessible and very nearly invisible, I found it easy to sustain a
regular siege."

"While our seventy-fives were blazing away at you."

"While our seventy-fives were releasing me, sir; for you can understand
that, once the church was destroyed and the nave in flames, no one dared
to venture up the tower. I had nothing to do, therefore, but wait
patiently for your arrival."

Paul Delroze had told his story in the simplest way and as though it
concerned perfectly natural things. The colonel, after congratulating
him again, confirmed his promotion to the rank of sergeant and said:

"Have you nothing to ask me?"

"Yes, sir, I should like to put a few more questions to the German spy
whom I left behind me and, at the same time, to get back my uniform,
which I hid."

"Very well, you shall dine here and we'll give you a bicycle
afterwards."

Paul was back at the first church by seven o'clock in the evening. A
great disappointment awaited him. The spy had broken his bonds and fled.

All Paul's searching, in the church and village, was useless.
Nevertheless, on one of the steps of the staircase, near the place where
he had flung himself upon the spy, he picked up the dagger with which
his adversary had tried to strike him. It was exactly similar to the
dagger which he had picked up in the grass, three weeks before, outside
the little gate in the Ornequin woods. It had the same three-cornered
blade, the same brown horn handle and, on the handle, the same four
letters: H, E, R, M.

The spy and the woman who bore so strange a resemblance to Hermine
d'Andeville, his father's murderess, both made use of an identical
weapon.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next day, the division to which Paul's regiment belonged continued the
offensive and entered Belgium after repulsing the enemy. But in the
evening the general received orders to fall back.

The retreat began. Painful as it was to one and all, it was doubly so
perhaps to those of our troops which had been victorious at the start.
Paul and his comrades in the third company could not contain themselves
for rage and disappointment. During the half a day which they spent in
Belgium, they saw the ruins of a little town that had been destroyed by
the Germans, the bodies of eighty women who had been shot, old men hung
up by their feet, stacks of murdered children. And they had to retire
before those monsters!

Some of the Belgian soldiers had attached themselves to the regiment;
and, with faces that still bore traces of horror at the infernal visions
which they had beheld, these men told of things beyond the conception of
the most vivid imagination. And our fellows had to retire. They had to
retire with hatred in their hearts and a mad desire for vengeance that
made their hands close fiercely on their rifles.

And why retire? It was not a question of being defeated, because they
were falling back in good order, making sudden halts and delivering
violent counter-attacks upon the disconcerted enemy. But his numbers
overpowered all resistance. The wave of barbarians reformed itself. The
place of each thousand dead was taken by two thousand of the living. And
our men retired.

One evening, Paul learnt one of the reasons for this retreat from a
week-old newspaper; and he was painfully affected by the news. On the
20th of August, Corvigny had been taken by assault, after some hours of
bombardment effected under the most inexplicable conditions, whereas the
stronghold was believed to be capable of holding out for at least some
days, which would have strengthened our operations against the left
flank of the Germans.

So Corvigny had fallen; and the Château d'Ornequin, doubtless abandoned,
as Paul himself hoped, by Jérôme and Rosalie, was now destroyed,
pillaged and sacked with the methodical thoroughness which the Huns
applied to their work of devastation. On this side, too, the furious
horde were crowding precipitately.

Those were sinister days, at the end of August, the most tragic days
perhaps that France has ever passed through. Paris was threatened, a
dozen departments were invaded. Death's icy breath hung over our gallant
nation.

It was on the morning of one of these days that Paul heard a cheerful
voice calling to him from a group of young soldiers behind him:

"Paul, Paul! I've got my way at last! Isn't it a stroke of luck?"

Those young soldiers were lads who had enlisted voluntarily and been
drafted into the regiment; and Paul at once recognized Élisabeth's
brother, Bernard d'Andeville. He had no time to think of the attitude
which he had best take up. His first impulse would have been to turn
away; but Bernard had seized his two hands and was pressing them with an
affectionate kindness which showed that the boy knew nothing as yet of
the breach between Paul and his wife.

"Yes, it's myself, old chap," he declared gaily. "I may call you old
chap, mayn't I? It's myself and it takes your breath away, what? You're
thinking of a providential meeting, the sort of coincidence one never
sees: two brothers-in-law dropping into the same regiment. Well, it's
not that: it happened at my express request. I said to the authorities,
'I'm enlisting by way of a duty and pleasure combined,' or words to that
effect. 'But, as a crack athlete and a prize-winner in every gymnastic
and drill-club I ever joined, I want to be sent to the front straight
away and into the same regiment as my brother-in-law, Corporal Paul
Delroze.' And, as they couldn't do without my services, they packed me
off here. . . . Well? You don't look particularly delighted . . . ?"

Paul was hardly listening. He said to himself:

"This is the son of Hermine d'Andeville. The boy who is now touching me
is the son of the woman who killed . . ."

But Bernard's face expressed such candor and such open-hearted pleasure
at seeing him that he said:

"Yes, I am. Only you're so young!"

"I? I'm quite ancient. Seventeen the day I enlisted."

"But what did your father say?"

"Dad gave me leave. But for that, of course, I shouldn't have given him
leave."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, he's enlisted, too."

"At his age?"

"Nonsense, he's quite juvenile. Fifty the day he enlisted! They found
him a job as interpreter with the British staff. All the family under
arms, you see. . . . Oh, I was forgetting, I've a letter for you from
Élisabeth!"

Paul started. He had deliberately refrained from asking after his wife.
He now said, as he took the letter:

"So she gave you this . . . ?"

"No, she sent it to us from Ornequin."

"From Ornequin? How can she have done that? Élisabeth left Ornequin on
the day of mobilization, in the evening. She was going to Chaumont, to
her aunt's."

"Not at all. I went and said good-bye to our aunt: she hadn't heard from
Élisabeth since the beginning of the war. Besides, look at the
envelope: 'M. Paul Delroze, care of M. d'Andeville, Paris, etc.' And
it's post-marked Ornequin and Corvigny."

Paul looked and stammered:

"Yes, you're right; and I can read the date on the post-mark: 18 August.
The 18th of August . . . and Corvigny fell into the hands of the Germans
two days later, on the 20th. So Élisabeth was still there."

"No, no," cried Bernard, "Élisabeth isn't a child! You surely don't
think she would have waited for the Huns, so close to the frontier! She
would have left the château at the first sound of firing. And that's
what she's telling you, I expect. Why don't you read her letter, Paul?"

Paul, on his side, had no idea of what he was about to learn on reading
the letter; and he opened the envelope with a shudder.

What Élisabeth wrote was:

      "_Paul_,

      "I cannot make up my mind to leave Ornequin. A duty
      keeps me here in which I shall not fail, the duty of
      clearing my mother's memory. Do understand me, Paul.
      My mother remains the purest of creatures in my eyes.
      The woman who nursed me in her arms, for whom my
      father retains all his love, must not be even
      suspected. But you yourself accuse her; and it is
      against you that I wish to defend her. To compel you
      to believe me, I shall find the proofs that are not
      necessary to convince me. And it seems to me that
      those proofs can only be found here. So I shall stay.

      "Jérôme and Rosalie are also staying on, though the
      enemy is said to be approaching. They have brave
      hearts, both of them, and you have nothing to fear, as
      I shall not be alone.

      ÉLISABETH DELROZE."

Paul folded up the letter. He was very pale.

Bernard asked:

"She's gone, hasn't she?"

"No, she's there."

"But this is madness! What, with those beasts about! A lonely
country-house! . . . But look here, Paul, she must surely know the
terrible dangers that threaten her! . . . What can be keeping her there?
Oh, it's too dreadful to think of. . . ."

Paul stood silent, with a drawn face and clenched fists. . . .



CHAPTER V

THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY


Three weeks before, on hearing that war was declared, Paul had felt
rising within him the immediate resolution to get killed at all costs.
The tragedy of his life, the horror of his marriage with a woman whom he
still loved in his heart, the certainty which he had acquired at the
Château d'Ornequin: all this had affected him to such a degree that he
came to look upon death as a boon. To him, war represented, from the
first and without the least demur, death. However much he might admire
the solemnly impressive and magnificently consoling events of those
first few weeks--the perfect order of the mobilization, the enthusiasm
of the soldiers, the wonderful unity that prevailed in France, the
awakening of the souls of the nation--none of these great spectacles
attracted his attention. Deep down within himself he had determined that
he would perform acts of such kind that not even the most improbable
hazard could succeed in saving him.

Thus he thought that he had found the desired occasion on the first day.
To overmaster the spy whose presence he suspected in the church steeple
and then to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's lines, in order
to signal the position, meant going to certain death. He went bravely.
And, as he had a very clear sense of his mission, he fulfilled it with
as much prudence as courage. He was ready to die, but to die after
succeeding. And he found a strange unexpected joy in the act itself as
well as in the success that attended it.

The discovery of the dagger employed by the spy made a great impression
on him. What connection did it establish between this man and the one
who had tried to stab him? What was the connection between these two and
the Comtesse d'Andeville, who had died sixteen years ago? And how, by
what invisible links, were they all three related to that same work of
treachery and spying of which Paul had surprised so many instances?

But Élisabeth's letter, above all, came upon him as a very violent blow.
She was over there, amidst the bullets and the shells, the hot fighting
around the château, the madness and the fury of the victors, the
burning, the shooting, the torturing and atrocities! She was there, she
so young and beautiful, almost alone, with no one to defend her! And she
was there because he, Paul, had not had the grit to go back to her and
see her once more and take her away with him!

These thoughts produced in Paul fits of depression from which he would
suddenly awaken to thrust himself in the path of some danger, pursuing
his mad enterprises to the end, come what might, with a quiet courage
and a fierce obstinacy that filled his comrades with both surprise and
admiration. And from that time onward he seemed to be seeking not so
much death as the unspeakable ecstasy which a man feels in defying it.

Then came the 6th of September, the day of the unheard-of miracle when
our great general-in-chief, addressing his armies in words that will
never perish, at last ordered them to fling themselves upon the enemy.
The gallantly-borne but cruel retreat came to an end. Exhausted,
breathless, fighting against odds for days, with no time for sleep, with
no time to eat, marching only by force of prodigious efforts of which
they were not even conscious, unable to say why they did not lie down in
the road-side ditches to await death, such were the men who received the
word of command:

"Halt! About face! And now have at the enemy!"

And they faced about. Those dying men recovered their strength. From the
humblest to the most illustrious, each summoned up his will and fought
as though the safety of France depended upon him alone. There were as
many glorious heroes as there were soldiers. They were asked to conquer
or die. They conquered.

Paul shone in the front rank of the fearless. He himself knew that what
he did and what he endured, what he tried to do and what he succeeded in
doing surpassed the limits of reality. On the 6th and the 7th and the
8th and again from the 11th to the 13th, despite his excessive fatigue,
despite the deprivations of sleep and food which it seemed impossible
for the human frame to resist, he had no other sensation than that of
advancing and again advancing--and always advancing. Whether in sunshine
or in shade, whether on the banks of the Marne or on the woody slopes of
the Argonne, whether north or east, when his division was sent to
reinforce the troops on the frontier, whether lying flat and creeping
along in the plowed fields or on his feet and charging with the bayonet,
he was always going forward and each step was a delivery and each step
was a conquest.

Each step also increased the hatred in his heart. Oh, how right his
father had been to loathe those people! Paul now saw them at work. On
every side were stupid devastation and unreasoning destruction, on every
side arson, pillage and death, hostages shot, women murdered, bestially,
for the love of the thing. Churches, country-houses, mansions of the
rich and cabins of the poor: nothing remained. The very ruins had been
razed to the ground, the very corpses tortured.

O the delight of defeating such an enemy! Though reduced to half its
full strength, Paul's regiment, released like a pack of hounds, never
ceased biting at the wild beast which it was hunting. The quarry seemed
more vicious and formidable the nearer it approached to the frontier;
and our men kept rushing at it in the mad hope of giving it the
death-stroke.

One day Paul read on a sign-post at a cross-roads:

      Corvigny, 14 Kil.
      Ornequin, 31 Kil. 400.
      The Frontier, 33 Kil. 200.

Corvigny! Ornequin! A thrill passed through his frame when he saw those
unexpected words. As a rule, absorbed as he was by the heat of the
conflict and by his private cares, he paid little attention to the names
of the places which he passed; and he learnt them only by chance. And
now suddenly he was within so short a distance of the Château
d'Ornequin! "Corvigny, 14 kilometers:" less than nine miles! . . . Were
the French troops making for Corvigny, for the little fortified place
which the Germans had taken by assault and taken under such strange
conditions?

That day, they had been fighting since daylight against an enemy whose
resistance seemed to grow slacker and slacker. Paul, at the head of a
squad of men, was sent to the village of Bléville with orders to enter
it if the enemy had retired, but go no farther. And it was just beyond
the last houses of the village that he saw the sign-post.

At the time, he was not quite easy in his mind. A Taube had flown over
the country a few minutes before. There was the possibility of an
ambush.

"Let's go back to the village," he said. "We'll barricade ourselves
while we wait."

But there was a sudden noise behind a wooded hill that interrupted the
road in the Corvigny direction, a noise that became more and more
definite, until Paul recognized the powerful throb of a motor, doubtless
a motor carrying a quick-firing gun.

"Crouch down in the ditch," he cried to his men. "Hide yourselves in the
haystacks. Fix bayonets. And don't move any of you!"

He had realized the danger of that motor's passing through the village,
plunging in the midst of his company, scattering panic and then making
off by some other way.

He quickly climbed the split trunk of an old oak and took up his
position in the branches a few feet above the road.

The motor soon came in sight. It was, as he expected, an armored car,
but one of the old pattern, which allowed the helmets and heads of the
men to show above the steel plating.

It came along at a smart pace, ready to dart forward in case of alarm.
The men were stooping with bent backs. Paul counted half-a-dozen of
them. The barrels of two Maxim guns projected beyond the car.

He put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the driver, a fat
Teuton with a scarlet face that seemed dyed with blood. Then, when the
moment came, he calmly fired.

"Charge, lads!" he cried, as he scrambled down from his tree.

But it was not even necessary to take the car by storm. The driver,
struck in the chest, had had the presence of mind to apply the brakes
and pull up. Seeing themselves surrounded, the Germans threw up their
hands:

"_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"

And one of them, flinging down his arms, leapt from the motor and came
running up to Paul:

"An Alsatian, sergeant, an Alsatian from Strasburg! Ah, sergeant, many's
the day that I've been waiting for this moment!"

While his men were taking the prisoners to the village, Paul hurriedly
questioned the Alsatian:

"Where has the car come from?"

"Corvigny."

"Any of your people there?"

"Very few. A rearguard of two hundred and fifty Badeners at the most."

"And in the forts?"

"About the same number. They didn't think it necessary to mend the
turrets and now they've been taken unprepared. They're hesitating
whether to try and make a stand or to fall back on the frontier; and
that's why we were sent to reconnoiter."

"So we can go ahead?"

"Yes, but at once, else they will receive powerful reinforcements, two
divisions."

"When?"

"To-morrow. They're to cross the frontier, to-morrow, about the middle
of the day."

"By Jove! There's no time to be lost!" said Paul.

While examining the guns and having the prisoners disarmed and searched,
Paul was considering the best measures to take, when one of his men, who
had stayed behind in the village, came and told him of the arrival of a
French detachment, with a lieutenant in command.

Paul hastened to tell the officer what had happened. Events called for
immediate action. He offered to go on a scouting expedition in the
captured motor.

"Very well," said the officer. "I'll occupy the village and arrange to
have the division informed as soon as possible."

The car made off in the direction of Corvigny, with eight men packed
inside. Two of them, placed in charge of the quick-firing guns, studied
the mechanism. The Alsatian stood up, so as to show his helmet and
uniform clearly, and scanned the horizon on every side.

All this was decided upon and done in the space of a few minutes,
without discussion and without delaying over the details of the
undertaking.

"We must trust to luck," said Paul, taking his seat at the wheel. "Are
you ready to see the job through, boys?"

"Yes; and further," said a voice which he recognized, just behind him.

It was Bernard d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother. Bernard belonged to the
9th company; and Paul had succeeded in avoiding him, since their first
meeting, or at least in not speaking to him. But he knew that the
youngster was fighting well.

"Ah, so you're there?" he said.

"In the flesh," said Bernard. "I came along with my lieutenant; and,
when I saw you getting into the motor and taking any one who turned up,
you can imagine how I jumped at the chance!" And he added, in a more
embarrassed tone, "The chance of doing a good stroke of work, under your
orders, and the chance of talking to you, Paul . . . for I've been
unlucky so far. . . . I even thought that . . . that you were not as
well-disposed to me as I hoped. . . ."

"Nonsense," said Paul. "Only I was bothered. . . ."

"You mean, about Élisabeth?"

"Yes."

"I see. All the same, that doesn't explain why there was something
between us, a sort of constraint . . ."

At that moment, the Alsatian exclaimed:

"Lie low there! . . . Uhlans ahead! . . ."

A patrol came trotting down a cross-road, turning the corner of a wood.
He shouted to them, as the car passed:

"Clear out, Kameraden! Fast as you can! The French are coming!"

Paul took advantage of the incident not to answer his brother-in-law. He
had forced the pace; and the motor was now thundering along, scaling
the hills and shooting down them like a meteor.

The enemy detachments became more numerous. The Alsatian called out to
them or else by means of signs incited them to beat an immediate
retreat.

"It's the funniest thing to see," he said, laughing. "They're all
galloping behind us like mad." And he added, "I warn you, sergeant, that
at this rate we shall dash right into Corvigny. Is that what you want to
do?"

"No," replied Paul, "we'll stop when the town's in sight."

"And, if we're surrounded?"

"By whom? In any case, these bands of fugitives won't be able to oppose
our return."

Bernard d'Andeville spoke:

"Paul," he said, "I don't believe you're thinking of returning."

"You're quite right. Are you afraid?"

"Oh, what an ugly word!"

But presently Paul went on, in a gentler voice:

"I'm sorry you came, Bernard."

"Is the danger greater for me than for you and the others?"

"No."

"Then do me the honor not to be sorry."

Still standing up and leaning over the sergeant, the Alsatian pointed
with his hand:

"That spire straight ahead, behind the trees, is Corvigny. I calculate
that, by slanting up the hills on the left, we ought to be able to see
what's happening in the town."

"We shall see much better by going inside," Paul remarked. "Only it's a
big risk . . . especially for you, Alsatian. If they take you prisoner,
they'll shoot you. Shall I put you down this side of Corvigny?"

"You haven't studied my face, sergeant."

The road was now running parallel with the railway. Soon, the first
houses of the outskirts came in sight. A few soldiers appeared.

"Not a word to these," Paul ordered. "It won't do to startle them . . .
or they'll take us from behind at the critical moment."

He recognized the station and saw that it was strongly held. Spiked
helmets were coming and going along the avenues that led to the town.

"Forward!" cried Paul. "If there's any large body of troops, it can only
be in the square. Are the guns ready? And the rifles? See to mine for
me, Bernard. And, at the first signal, independent fire!"

The motor rushed at full speed into the square. As he expected, there
were about a hundred men there, all massed in front of the church-steps,
near their stacked rifles. The church was a mere heap of ruins; and
almost all the houses in the square had been leveled to the ground by
the bombardment.

The officers, standing on one side, cheered and waved their hands on
seeing the motor which they had sent out to reconnoiter and whose return
they seemed to be expecting before making their decision about the
defense of the town. There were a good many of them, their number no
doubt including some communication officers. A general stood a head and
shoulders above the rest. A number of cars were waiting some little
distance away.

The street was paved with cobble-stones and there was no raised pavement
between it and the square. Paul followed it; but, when he was within
twenty yards of the officers, he gave a violent turn of the wheel and
the terrible machine made straight for the group, knocking them down and
running over them, slanted off slightly, so as to take the stacks of
rifles, and then plunged like an irresistible mass right into the middle
of the detachment, spreading death as it went, amid a mad, hustling
flight and yells of pain and terror.

"Independent fire!" cried Paul, stopping the car.

And the firing began from this impregnable blockhouse, which had
suddenly sprung up in the center of the square, accompanied by the
sinister crackle of the two Maxim guns.

In five minutes, the square was strewn with killed and wounded men. The
general and several officers lay dead. The survivors took to their
heels.

Paul gave the order to cease fire and took the car to the top of the
avenue that led to the station. The troops from the station were
hastening up, attracted by the shooting. A few volleys from the guns
dispersed them.

Paul drove three times quickly round the square, to examine the
approaches. On every side the enemy was fleeing along the roads and
paths to the frontier. And on every hand the inhabitants of Corvigny
came out of their houses and gave vent to their delight.

"Pick up and see to the wounded," Paul ordered. "And send for the
bell-ringer, or some one who understands about the bells. It's urgent!"

An aged sacristan appeared.

"The tocsin, old man, the tocsin for all you're worth! And, when you're
tired, have some one to take your place! The tocsin, without stopping
for a second!"

This was the signal which Paul had agreed upon with the French
lieutenant, to announce to the division that the enterprise had
succeeded and that the troops were to advance.

It was two o'clock. At five, the staff and a brigade had taken
possession of Corvigny and our seventy-fives were firing a few shells.
By ten o'clock in the evening, the rest of the division having come up
meantime, the Germans had been driven out of the Grand Jonas and the
Petit Jonas and were concentrating before the frontier. It was decided
to dislodge them at daybreak.

"Paul," said Bernard to his brother-in-law, at the evening roll-call, "I
have something to tell you, something that puzzles me, a very queer
thing: you'll judge for yourself. Just now, I was walking down one of
the streets near the church when a woman spoke to me. I couldn't make
out her face or her dress at first, because it was almost dark, but she
seemed to be a peasant-woman from the sound of her wooden shoes on the
cobbles. 'Young man,' she said--and her way of expressing herself
surprised me a little in a peasant-woman--'Young man, you may be able to
tell me something I want to know.' I said I was at her service and she
began, 'It's like this: I live in a little village close by. I heard
just now that your army corps was here. So I came, because I wanted to
see a soldier who belonged to it, only I don't know the number of his
regiment. I believe he has been transferred, because I never get a
letter from him; and I dare say he has not had mine. Oh, if you only
happened to know him! He's such a good lad, such a gallant fellow.' I
asked her to tell me his name; and she answered, 'Delroze, Corporal Paul
Delroze.'"

"What!" cried Paul. "Did she want me?"

"Yes, Paul, and the coincidence struck me as so curious that I just gave
her the number of your regiment and your company, without telling her
that we were related. 'Good,' she said. 'And is the regiment at
Corvigny?' I said it had just arrived. 'And do you know Paul Delroze?'
'Only by name,' I answered. I can't tell you why I answered like that,
or why I continued the conversation so as not to let her guess my
surprise: 'He has been promoted to sergeant,' I said, 'and mentioned in
dispatches. That's how I come to have heard his name. Shall I find out
where he is and take you to him?' 'Not yet,' she said, 'not yet. I
should be too much upset.'"

"What on earth did she mean?"

"I can't imagine. It struck me as more and more suspicious. Here was a
woman looking for you eagerly and yet putting off the chance of seeing
you. I asked her if she was very much interested in you and she said
yes, that you were her son."

"Her son!"

"Up to then I am certain that she did not suspect for a second that I
was cross-examining her. But my astonishment was so great that she drew
back into the shadow, as though to put herself on the defensive. I
slipped my hand into my pocket, pulled out my little electric lamp, went
up to her, pressed the spring and flung the light full in her face. She
seemed disconcerted and stood for a moment without moving. Then she
quickly lowered a scarf which she wore over her head and, with a
strength which I should never have believed, struck me on the arm and
made me drop my lamp. Then came a second of absolute silence. I couldn't
make out where she was: whether in front of me, or on the right or the
left. There was no sound to tell me if she was there still or not. But I
understood presently, when, after picking up my lamp and switching on
the light again, I saw her two wooden shoes on the ground. She had
stepped out of them and run away on her stocking-feet. I hunted for her,
but couldn't find her. She had disappeared."

Paul had listened to his brother-in-law's story with increasing
attention.

"Then you saw her face?" he asked.

"Oh, quite distinctly! A strong face, with black hair and eyebrows and a
look of great wickedness. . . . Her clothes were those of a
peasant-woman, but too clean and too carefully put on: I felt somehow
that they were a disguise."

"About what age was she?"

"Forty."

"Would you know her again?"

"Without a moment's hesitation."

"What was the color of the scarf you mentioned?"

"Black."

"How was it fastened? In a knot?"

"No, with a brooch."

"A cameo?"

"Yes, a large cameo set in gold. How did you know that?"

Paul was silent for some time and then said:

"I will show you to-morrow, in one of the rooms at Ornequin, a portrait
which should bear a striking resemblance to the woman who spoke to you,
the sort of resemblance that exists between two sisters perhaps . . . or
. . . or . . ." He took his brother-in-law by the arm and, leading him
along, continued, "Listen to me, Bernard. There are terrible things
around us, in the present and the past, things that affect my life and
Élisabeth's . . . and yours as well. Therefore, I am struggling in the
midst of a hideous obscurity in which enemies whom I do not know have
for twenty years been pursuing a scheme which I am quite unable to
understand. In the beginning of the struggle, my father died, the victim
of a murder. To-day it is I that am being threatened. My marriage with
your sister is shattered and nothing can bring us together again, just
as nothing will ever again allow you and me to be on those terms of
friendship and confidence which we had the right to hope for. Don't ask
me any questions, Bernard, and don't try to find out any more. One day,
perhaps--and I do not wish that day ever to arrive--you will know why I
begged for your silence."



CHAPTER VI

WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN


Paul Delroze was awakened at dawn by the bugle-call. And, in the
artillery duel that now began, he at once recognized the sharp, dry
voice of the seventy-fives and the hoarse bark of the German
seventy-sevens.

"Are you coming, Paul?" Bernard called from his room. "Coffee is served
downstairs."

The brothers-in-law had found two little bedrooms over a publican's
shop. While they both did credit to a substantial breakfast, Paul told
Bernard the particulars of the occupation of Corvigny and Ornequin which
he had gathered on the evening before:

"On Wednesday, the nineteenth of August, Corvigny, to the great
satisfaction of the inhabitants, still thought that it would be spared
the horrors of war. There was fighting in Alsace and outside Nancy,
there was fighting in Belgium; but it looked as if the German thrust
were neglecting the route of invasion offered by the valley of the
Liseron. The fact is that this road is a narrow one and apparently of
secondary importance. At Corvigny, a French brigade was busily pushing
forward the defense-works. The Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas were
ready under their concrete cupolas. Our fellows were waiting."

"And at Ornequin?" asked Bernard.

"At Ornequin, we had a company of light infantry. The officers put up at
the house. This company, supported by a detachment of dragoons,
patrolled the frontier day and night. In case of alarm, the orders were
to inform the forts at once and to retreat fighting. The evening of
Wednesday was absolutely quiet. A dozen dragoons had galloped over the
frontier till they were in sight of the little German town of Èbrecourt.
There was not a movement of troops to be seen on that side, nor on the
railway-line that ends at Èbrecourt. The night also was peaceful. Not a
shot was fired. It is fully proved that at two o'clock in the morning
not a single German soldier had crossed the frontier. Well, at two
o'clock exactly, a violent explosion was heard, followed by four others
at close intervals. These explosions were due to the bursting of five
four-twenty shells which demolished straightway the three cupolas of the
Grand Jonas and the two cupolas of the Petit Jonas."

"What do you mean? Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier; and the
four-twenties don't carry as far as that!"

"That didn't prevent six more shells falling at Corvigny, all on the
church or in the square. And these six shells fell twenty minutes later,
that is to say, at the time when it was to be presumed that the alarm
would have been given and that the Corvigny garrison would have
assembled in the square. This was just what had happened; and you can
imagine the carnage that resulted."

"I agree; but, once more, the frontier was fifteen miles away. That
distance must have given our troops time to form up again and to prepare
for the attacks foretold by the bombardment. They had at least three or
four hours before them."

"They hadn't fifteen minutes. The bombardment was not over before the
assault began. Assault isn't the word: our troops, those at Corvigny as
well as those which hastened up from the two forts, were decimated and
routed, surrounded by the enemy, shot down or obliged to surrender,
before it was possible to organize any sort of resistance. It all
happened suddenly under the blinding glare of flash-lights erected no
one knew where or how. And the catastrophe was immediate. You may take
it that Corvigny was invested, attacked, captured and occupied by the
enemy, all in ten minutes."

"But where did he come from? Where did he spring from?"

"Nobody knows."

"But the night-patrols on the frontier? The sentries? The company on
duty at Ornequin?"

"Never heard of again. No one knows anything, not a word, not a rumor,
about those three hundred men whose business it was to keep watch and to
warn the others. You can reckon up the Corvigny garrison, with the
soldiers who escaped and the dead whom the inhabitants identified and
buried. But the three hundred light infantry of Ornequin disappeared
without leaving the shadow of a trace behind them, not a fugitive, not a
wounded man, not a corpse, nothing at all."

"It seems incredible. Whom did you talk to?"

"I saw ten people last night who, for a month, with no one to interfere
with them except a few soldiers of the Landsturm placed in charge of
Corvigny, have pursued a minute inquiry into all these problems, without
establishing so much as a plausible theory. One thing alone is certain:
the business was prepared long ago, down to the slightest detail. The
exact range had been taken of the forts, the cupolas, the church and the
square; and the siege-gun had been placed in position before and
accurately laid so that the eleven shells should strike the eleven
objects aimed at. That's all. The rest is mystery."

"And what about the château? And Élisabeth?"

Paul had risen from his seat. The bugles were sounding the morning
roll-call. The gun-fire was twice as intense as before. They both
started for the square; and Paul continued:

"Here, too, the mystery is bewildering and perhaps worse. One of the
cross-roads that run through the fields between Corvigny and Ornequin
has been made a boundary by the enemy which no one here had the right to
overstep under pain of death."

"Then Élisabeth . . . ?"

"I don't know, I know nothing more. And it's terrible, this shadow of
death lying over everything, over every incident. It appears--I have not
been able to find out where the rumor originated--that the village of
Ornequin, near the château, no longer exists. It has been entirely
destroyed, more than that, annihilated; and its four hundred inhabitants
have been sent away into captivity. And then . . ." Paul shuddered and,
lowering his voice, went on, "And then . . . what did they do at the
château? You can see the house, you can still see it at a distance, with
its walls and turrets standing. But what happened behind those walls?
What has become of Élisabeth? For nearly four weeks she has been living
in the midst of those brutes, poor thing, exposed to every outrage!
. . ."

The sun had hardly risen when they reached the square. Paul was sent for
by his colonel, who gave him the heartiest congratulations of the
general commanding the division and told him that his name had been
submitted for the military cross and for a commission as second
lieutenant and that he was to take command of his section from now.

"That's all," said the colonel, laughing. "Unless you have any further
request to make."

"I have two, sir."

"Go ahead."

"First, that my brother-in-law here, Bernard d'Andeville, may be at once
transferred to my section as corporal. He's deserved it."

"Very well. And next?"

"My second request is that presently, when we move towards the frontier,
my section may be sent to the Château d'Ornequin, which is on the direct
route."

"You mean that it is to take part in the attack on the château?"

"The attack?" echoed Paul, in alarm. "Why, the enemy is concentrated
along the frontier, four miles from the château!"

"So it was believed, yesterday. In reality, the concentration took place
at the Château d'Ornequin, an excellent defensive position where the
enemy is hanging desperately while waiting for his reinforcements to
come up. The best proof is that he's answering our fire. Look at that
shell bursting over there . . . and, farther off, that shrapnel . . .
two . . . three of them. Those are the guns which located the batteries
which we have set up on the surrounding hills and which are now
peppering them like mad. They must have twenty guns there."

"Then, in that case," stammered Paul, tortured by a horrible thought,
"in that case, that fire of our batteries is directed at . . ."

"At them, of course. Our seventy-fives have been bombarding the Château
d'Ornequin for the last hour."

Paul uttered an exclamation of horror:

"Do you mean to say, sir, that we're bombarding Ornequin? . . ."

And Bernard d'Andeville, standing beside him, repeated, in an
anguish-stricken voice:

"Bombarding Ornequin? Oh, how awful!"

The colonel asked, in surprise:

"Do you know the place? Perhaps it belongs to you? Is that so? And are
any of your people there?"

"Yes, sir, my wife."

Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in
order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin
quivered.

On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering,
three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted into position by traction
engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives,
assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel
and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one
of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic
horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them,
blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of
those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to
slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely
said:

"It looks as if the enemy's fire was slowing down. Perhaps they are
retreating. . . ."

Three shells bursting at the far end of the town, behind the church,
belied this hope. The colonel shook his head:

"Retreating? Not yet. The place is too important to them; they are
waiting for reinforcements and they won't give way until our regiments
take part in the game . . . which won't be long now."

In fact, the order to advance was brought to the colonel a few moments
later. The regiment was to follow the road and deploy in the meadows on
the right.

"Come along, gentlemen," he said to his officers. "Sergeant Delroze's
section will march in front. His objective will be the Château
d'Ornequin. There are two little short cuts. Take both of them."

"Very well, sir."

All Paul's sorrow and rage were intensified in a boundless need for
action; when he marched off with his men, he felt an inexhaustible
strength, felt capable of conquering the enemy's position all by
himself. He moved from one to the other with the untiring hurry of a
sheep-dog hustling his flock. He never ceased advising and encouraging
his men:

"You're one of the plucky ones, old chap, I know, you're no shirker.
. . . Nor you either . . . Only you think too much about your skin, you
keep grumbling, when you ought to be cheerful. . . . Who's downhearted,
eh? There's a bit more collar-work to do and we're going to do it
without looking behind us, what?"

Overhead, the shells followed their march in the air, whistling and
moaning and exploding till they formed a sort of canopy of steel and
grape-shot.

"Duck your heads! Lie down flat!" cried Paul.

He himself remained standing, indifferent to the flight of the enemy's
shells. But with what terror he listened to our own, those coming from
behind, from all the hills hard by, whizzing ahead of them to carry
destruction and death. Where would this one fall? And that one, where
would its murderous rain of bullets and splinters descend?

He was obsessed with the vision of his wife, wounded, dying, and kept on
murmuring her name. For many days now, ever since the day when he learnt
that Élisabeth had refused to leave the Château d'Ornequin, he could not
think of her without a loving emotion that was never spoilt by any
impulse of revolt, any movement of anger. He no longer mingled the
detestable memories of the past with the charming reality of his love.
When he thought of the hated mother, the image of the daughter no longer
appeared before his mind. They were two creatures of a different race,
having no connection one with the other. Élisabeth, full of courage,
risking her life to obey a duty to which she attached a value greater
than her life, acquired in Paul's eyes a singular dignity. She was
indeed the woman whom he had loved and cherished, the woman whom he
loved still.

Paul stopped. He had ventured with his men into an open piece of ground,
probably marked down in advance, which the enemy was now peppering with
shrapnel. A number of men were hit.

"Halt!" he cried. "Flat on your stomachs, all of you!"

He caught hold of Bernard:

"Lie down, kid, can't you? Why expose yourself unnecessarily? . . . Stay
there. Don't move."

He held him to the ground with a friendly pressure, keeping his arm
round Bernard's neck and speaking to him with gentleness, as though he
were trying to display to the brother all the affection that rose to his
heart for his dear Élisabeth. He forgot the harsh words which he had
addressed to Bernard and uttered quite different words, throbbing with a
fondness which he had denied the evening before:

"Don't move, youngster. You see, I had no business to bring you with me
or to drag you into this hot place. I'm responsible for you and I'm not
going to have you hurt."

The fire diminished in intensity. By crawling over the ground, the men
reached a double row of poplars which led them, by a gentle ascent,
towards a ridge intersected by a hollow road. Paul, on climbing the
slope which overlooked the Ornequin plateau, saw the ruins of the
village in the distance, with its shattered church, and, farther to the
left, a wilderness of trees and stones whence rose the walls of a
building. This was the château. On every side around were blazing
farmhouses, haystacks and barns.

Behind the section, the French troops were scattering forward in all
directions. A battery had taken up its position in the shelter of a wood
close by and was firing incessantly. Paul could see the shells bursting
over the château and among the ruins.

Unable to bear the sight any longer, he resumed his march at the head of
his section. The enemy's guns had ceased thundering, had doubtless been
reduced to silence. But, when they were well within two miles of
Ornequin, the bullets whistled around them and Paul saw a detachment of
Germans falling back upon the village, firing as they went. And the
seventy-fives and Rimailhos kept on growling. The din was terrible.

Paul gripped Bernard by the arm and, in a quivering voice, said:

"If anything happens to me, tell Élisabeth that I beg her to forgive me.
Do you understand? I beg her to forgive me."

He was suddenly afraid that fate would not allow him to see his wife
again; and he realized that he had behaved to her with unpardonable
cruelty, deserting her as though she were guilty of a fault which she
had not committed and abandoning her to every form of distress and
torment. And he walked on briskly, followed at a distance by his men.

But, at the spot where the short cut joins the high road, in sight of
the Liseron, a cyclist rode up to him. The colonel had ordered that the
section should wait for the main body of the regiment in order to make
an attack in full force.

This was the cruelest test of all. Paul, a victim to ever-increasing
excitement, trembled with fever and rage.

"Come, Paul," said Bernard, "don't work yourself into such a state! We
shall get there in time."

"In time for what?" he retorted. "To find her dead or wounded? Or not to
find her at all? Oh, hang it, why can't our guns stop their damned row?
What are they shelling, now that the enemy's no longer replying? Dead
bodies and demolished houses! . . ."

"What about the rearguard covering the German retreat?"

"Well, aren't we here, the infantry? This is our job. All we have to do
is to send out our sharpshooters and follow up with a good
bayonet-charge. . . ."

At last the section set out again, reinforced by the remainder of the
ninth company and under the command of the captain. A detachment of
hussars galloped by, pricking towards the village to cut off the
fugitives. The company swerved towards the château.

Opposite them, all was silent as the grave. Was it a trap? Was there not
every reason to believe that enemy forces, strongly entrenched and
barricaded as these were, would prepare to offer a last resistance? And
yet there was nothing suspicious in the avenue of old oaks that led to
the front court, not a sign of life to be seen or heard.

Paul and Bernard, still keeping ahead, with their fingers on the
trigger of their rifles, searched the dim light of the underwood with a
keen glance. Columns of smoke rose above the wall, which was now quite
near, yawning with breach upon breach. As they approached, they heard
moans, followed by the heart-rending sound of a death-rattle. It was the
German wounded.

And suddenly the earth shook as though an inner upheaval had shattered
its crust and from the other side of the wall came a tremendous
explosion, or rather a series of explosions, like so many peals of
thunder. The air was darkened with a cloud of sand and dust which sent
forth all sorts of stones and rubbish. The enemy had blown up the
château.

"That was meant for us, I expect," said Bernard. "We were to have been
blown up at the same time. They were out in their calculations."

When they had passed the gate, the sight of the mined court-yard, of the
shattered turrets, of the demolished château, of the out-houses in
flames, of the dying in their last throes and the thickly stacked
corpses of the dead startled them into recoiling.

"Forward! Forward!" shouted the colonel, galloping up. "There are troops
that must have made off across the park."

Paul knew the road, which he had covered a few weeks earlier in such
tragic circumstances. He rushed across the lawns, among blocks of stone
and uprooted trees. But, as he passed in sight of a little lodge that
stood at the entrance to the wood, he stopped, nailed to the ground.
And Bernard and all the men stood stupefied, opening their mouths wide
with horror.

Against the lodge, two corpses rested on their feet, fastened to rings
in the wall by a single chain wound round their waists. Their bodies
were bent over the chains and their arms hung to the ground.

They were the corpses of a man and a woman. Paul recognized Jérôme and
Rosalie. They had been shot.

The chain continued beyond them. There was a third ring in the wall. The
plaster was stained with blood and there were visible traces of bullets.
There had been a third victim, without a doubt, and the body had been
removed.

As he approached, Paul noticed a splinter of bomb-shell embedded in the
plaster. Around the hole thus formed, between the plaster and the
splinter, was a handful of fair hair with golden lights in it, hair torn
from the head of Élisabeth.



CHAPTER VII

H. E. R. M.


Paul's first feeling was an immense need of revenge, then and there, at
all costs, a need outweighing any sense of horror or despair. He gazed
around him, as though all the wounded men who lay dying in the park were
guilty of the monstrous crime:

"The cowards!" he snarled. "The murderers!"

"Are you sure," stammered Bernard, "are you sure it's Élisabeth's hair?"

"Why, of course I am. They've shot her as they shot the two others. I
know them both: it's the keeper and his wife. Oh, the blackguards!
. . ."

He raised the butt of his rifle over a German dragging himself in the
grass and was about to strike him, when the Colonel came up to him:

"Hullo, Delroze, what are you doing? Where's your company?"

"Oh, sir, if you only knew! . . ."

He rushed up to his colonel. He looked like a madman and brandished his
rifle as he spoke:

"They've killed her, sir, yes, they've shot my wife. . . . Look, against
the wall there, with the two people who were in her service. . . .
They've shot her. . . . She was twenty years old, sir. . . . Oh, we
must kill them all like dogs!"

But Bernard was dragging him away:

"Don't let us waste time, Paul; we can take our revenge on those who are
still fighting. . . . I hear firing over there. Some of them are
surrounded, I expect."

Paul hardly knew what he was doing. He started running again, drunk with
rage and grief.

Ten minutes later, he had rejoined his company and was crossing the open
space where his father had been stabbed. The chapel was in front of him.
Farther on, instead of the little door that used to be in the wall, a
great breach had been made, to admit the convoys of wagons for
provisioning the castle. Eight hundred yards beyond it, a violent
rifle-fire crackled over the fields, at the crossing of the road and the
highway.

A few dozen retreating Germans were trying to force their way through
the hussars who had come by the high road. They were attacked from
behind by Paul's company, but succeeded in taking shelter in a square
patch of trees and copsewood, where they defended themselves with fierce
energy, retiring step by step and dropping one after the other.

"Why don't they surrender?" muttered Paul, who was firing continually
and who was gradually being calmed by the heat of the fray. "You would
think they were trying to gain time."

"Look over there!" said Bernard, in a husky voice.

Under the trees, a motor-car had just come from the frontier, crammed
with German soldiers. Was it bringing reinforcements? No, the motor
turned almost in its own length; and between it and the last of the
combatants stood an officer in a long gray cloak, who, revolver in hand,
exhorted them to persevere in their resistance, while he himself
effected his retreat towards the car sent to his rescue.

"Look, Paul," Bernard repeated, "look!"

Paul was dumfounded. That officer to whom Bernard was calling his
attention was . . . but no, it could not be. And yet . . .

"What do you mean to suggest, Bernard?" he asked.

"It's the same face," muttered Bernard, "the same face as yesterday, you
know, Paul: the face of the woman who asked me those questions about
you, Paul."

And Paul on his side recognized beyond the possibility of a doubt the
mysterious individual who had tried to kill him at the little door
leading out of the park, the creature who presented such an
unconceivable resemblance to his father's murderess, to the woman of the
portrait, to Hermine d'Andeville, Élisabeth's mother and Bernard's.

Bernard raised his rifle to fire.

"No, don't do that!" cried Paul, terrified at the movement.

"Why not?"

"Let's try and take him alive."

He darted forward in a mad rush of hatred, but the officer had run to
the car. The German soldiers held out their hands and hoisted him into
their midst. Paul shot the one who was seated at the wheel. The officer
caught hold of it just as the car was about to strike a tree, changed
the direction and, skilfully guiding the car past the intervening
obstacles, drove it behind a bend in the ground and from there towards
the frontier. He was saved.

As soon as he was beyond the range of the bullets, the German soldiers
who were still fighting surrendered.

Paul was trembling with impotent fury. To him this individual
represented every imaginable form of evil; and, from the first to the
last minute of that long series of tragedies, murders, attempts at
spying and assassination, treacheries and deliberate shootings, all
conceived with the same object and the same spirit, that one figure
stood out as the very genius of crime.

Nothing short of the creature's death would have appeased Paul's hatred.
It was he, the monster, Paul never entertained a doubt of it, who had
ordered Élisabeth to be shot. Élisabeth shot! Oh, the shame of it! Oh,
infernal vision that tormented him! . . .

"Who is he?" he cried. "How can we find out? How can we get at him and
torture him and kill him?"

"Question a prisoner," said Bernard.

The captain considered it wiser to advance no farther and ordered the
company to fall back, so as to remain in touch with the remainder of the
regiment. Paul was told off specially to occupy the château with his
section and to take the prisoners there.

He lost no time in questioning two or three non-commissioned officers
and some of the soldiers, as they went. But he could obtain nothing but
a mass of conflicting particulars from them, for they had arrived from
Corvigny the day before and had only spent the night at the château.
They did not even know the name of the officer in the flowing gray cloak
for whom so many of them had sacrificed their lives. He was called the
major; and that was all.

"But still," Paul insisted, "he was your actual commanding officer?"

"No. The leader of the rearguard detachment to which we belong is an
Oberleutnant who was wounded by the exploding of the mines, when we ran
away. We wanted to take him with us, but the major objected, leveling
his revolver at us, telling us to march in front of him and threatening
to shoot the first man who left him in the lurch. And just now, while we
were fighting, he stood ten paces behind us and kept threatening us with
his revolver to compel us to defend him. He shot three of us, as a
matter of fact."

"He was reckoning on the assistance of the car, wasn't he?"

"Yes; and also on reinforcements which were to save us all, so he said.
But only the car came; and it just saved him."

"The Oberleutnant would know his name, of course. Is he badly wounded?"

"He's got a broken leg. We made him comfortable in a lodge in the park."

"The lodge against which your people put to death . . . those
civilians?"

"Yes."

They were nearing the lodge, a sort of little orangery into which the
plants were taken in winter. Rosalie and Jérôme's bodies had been
removed. But the sinister chain was still hanging on the wall, fastened
to the three iron rings; and Paul once more beheld, with a shudder of
dread, the marks left by the bullet and the little splinter of
bomb-shell that kept Élisabeth's hair embedded in the plaster.

A French bomb-shell! An added horror to the atrocity of the murder!

It was therefore Paul who, on the day before, by capturing the armored
motor-car and effecting his daring raid on Corvigny, thus opening the
road to the French troops, had brought about the events that ended in
his wife's being murdered! The enemy had revenged himself for his
retreat by shooting the inhabitants of the château! Élisabeth fastened
to the wall by a chain had been riddled with bullets. And, by a hideous
irony, her corpse had received in addition the splinters of the first
shells which the French guns had fired before night-fall, from the top
of the hills near Corvigny.

Paul pulled out the fragments of shell and removed the golden strands,
which he put away religiously. He and Bernard then entered the lodge,
where the Red Cross men had established a temporary ambulance. They
found the Oberleutnant lying on a truss of straw, well looked after and
able to answer questions.

One point at once became quite clear, which was that the German troops
which had garrisoned the Château d'Ornequin had, so to speak, never been
in touch at all with those which, the day before, had retreated from
Corvigny and the adjoining forts. The garrison had been evacuated
immediately upon the arrival of the fighting troops, as though to avoid
any indiscretion on the subject of what had happened during the
occupation of the château.

"At that moment," said the Oberleutnant, who belonged to the fighting
force, not to the garrison, "it was seven o'clock in the evening. Your
seventy-fives had already got the range of the château; and we found no
one there but a number of generals and other officers of superior rank.
Their baggage-wagons were leaving and their motors were ready to leave.
I was ordered to hold out as long as I could to blow up the château. The
major had made all the arrangements beforehand."

"What was the major's name?"

"I don't know. He was walking about with a young officer whom even the
generals addressed with respect. This same officer called me over to him
and charged me to obey the major 'as I would the emperor.'"

"And who was the young officer?"

"Prince Conrad."

"A son of the Kaiser's?"

"Yes. He left the château yesterday, late in the day."

"And did the major spend the night here?"

"I suppose so; at any rate, he was there this morning. We fired the
mines and left . . . a bit late, for I was wounded near this lodge . . .
near the wall. . . ."

Paul mastered his emotion and said:

"You mean, the wall against which your people shot three French
civilians, don't you?"

"Yes."

"When were they shot?"

"About six o'clock in the afternoon, I believe, before we arrived from
Corvigny."

"Who ordered them to be shot?"

"The major."

Paul felt the perspiration trickling from the top of his head down his
neck and forehead. It was as he thought: Élisabeth had been shot by the
orders of that nameless and more than mysterious individual whose face
was the very image of the face of Hermine d'Andeville, Élisabeth's
mother!

He went on, in a trembling voice:

"So there were three people shot? You're quite sure?"

"Yes, the people of the château. They had been guilty of treachery."

"A man and two women?"

"Yes."

"But there were only two bodies fastened to the wall of the lodge."

"Yes, only two. The major had the lady of the house buried by Prince
Conrad's orders."

"Where?"

"He didn't tell me."

"But why was she shot?"

"I understand that she had got hold of some very important secrets."

"They could have taken her away and kept her as a prisoner."

"Certainly, but Prince Conrad was tired of her."

Paul gave a start:

"What's that you say?"

The officer resumed, with a smile that might mean anything:

"Well, damn it all, everybody knows Prince Conrad! He's the Don Juan of
the family. He'd been staying at the château for some weeks and had time
to make an impression, had he not? . . . And then . . . and then to get
tired. . . . Besides, the major maintained that the woman and her two
servants had tried to poison the prince. So you see . . ."

He did not finish his sentence. Paul was bending over him and, with a
face distorted with rage, took him by the throat and shouted:

"Another word, you dog, and I'll throttle the life out of you! Ah, you
can thank your stars that you're wounded! . . . If you weren't . . . if
you weren't . . . !"

And Bernard, beside himself with rage, joined in:

"Yes, you can think yourself lucky. As for your Prince Conrad, he's a
swine, let me tell you . . . and I mean to tell _him_ so to his face.
. . . He's a swine like all his beastly family and like the whole lot of
you! . . ."

They left the Oberleutnant utterly dazed and unable to understand a word
of this sudden outburst. But, once outside, Paul had a fit of despair.
His nerves relaxed. All his anger and all his hatred were changed into
infinite depression. He could hardly contain his tears.

"Come, Paul," exclaimed Bernard, "surely you don't believe a word
. . . ?"

"No, no, and again no! But I can guess what happened. That drunken brute
of a prince must have tried to make eyes at Élisabeth and to take
advantage of his position. Just think! A woman, alone and defenseless:
that was a conquest worth making! What tortures the poor darling must
have undergone, what humiliations! . . . A daily struggle, with threats
and brutalities. . . . And, at the last moment, death, to punish her for
her resistance. . . ."

"We shall avenge her, Paul," said Bernard, in a low voice.

"We shall; but shall I ever forget that it was on my account, through my
fault, that she stayed here? I will explain what I mean later on; and
you will understand how hard and unjust I have been. . . . And yet
. . ."

He stood gloomily thinking. He was haunted by the image of the major and
he repeated:

"And yet . . . and yet . . . there are things that seem so strange.
. . ."

       *       *       *       *       *

All that afternoon, French troops kept streaming in through the valley
of the Liseron and the village of Ornequin in order to resist any
counter-attack by the enemy. Paul's section was resting; and he and
Bernard took advantage of this to make a minute search in the park and
among the ruins of the château. But there was no clue to reveal to them
where Élisabeth's body lay hidden.

At five o'clock, they gave Rosalie and Jérôme a decent burial. Two
crosses were set up on a little mound strewn with flowers. An army
chaplain came and said the prayers for the dead. And Paul was moved to
tears when he knelt on the grave of those two faithful servants whose
devotion had been their undoing.

Then also Paul promised to avenge. And his longing for vengeance evoked
in his mind, with almost painful intensity, the hated image of the
major, that image which had now become inseparable from his
recollections of the Comtesse d'Andeville.

He led Bernard away from the grave and asked:

"Are you sure that you were not mistaken in connecting the major and the
supposed peasant-woman who questioned you at Corvigny?"

"Absolutely."

"Then come with me. I told you of a woman's portrait. We will go and
look at it and you shall tell me what impression it makes upon you."

Paul had noticed that that part of the castle which contained Hermine
d'Andeville's bedroom and boudoir had not been entirely demolished by
the explosion of either the mines or shells. It was possible that the
boudoir was still in its former condition.

The staircase had been destroyed; and they had to clamber up the
shattered masonry in order to reach the first floor. Traces of the
corridor were visible here and there. All the doors were gone; and the
rooms presented an appearance of pitiful chaos.

"It's here," said Paul, pointing to an open place between two pieces of
wall that remained standing as by a miracle.

It was indeed Hermine d'Andeville's boudoir, shattered and dilapidated,
cracked from top to bottom and filled with plaster and rubbish, but
quite recognizable and containing all the furniture which Paul had
noticed on the evening of his marriage. The window-shutters darkened the
room partly, but there was enough light for Paul to see the whereabouts
of the wall opposite. And he at once exclaimed:

"The portrait has been taken away!"

It was a great disappointment to him and, at the same time, a proof of
the great importance which his enemy attached to the portrait, which
could only have been removed because it constituted an overwhelming
piece of evidence.

"I assure you," said Bernard, "that this does not affect my opinion in
the least. There was no need to verify my conviction about the major and
that peasant-woman at Corvigny. Whose portrait was it?"

"I told you, a woman."

"What woman? Was it a picture which my father hung there, one of the
pictures of his collection?"

"That was it," said Paul, welcoming the opportunity of throwing his
brother-in-law off the scent.

Opening one of the shutters, he saw a mark on the wall of the
rectangular space which the picture used to occupy; and he was able to
perceive, from certain details, that the removal had been effected in a
hurry. For instance, the gilt scroll had dropped from the frame and was
lying on the floor. Paul picked it up stealthily so that Bernard should
not see the inscription engraved upon it.

But, while he was examining the panel more attentively after Bernard had
unfastened the other shutter, he gave an exclamation.

"What's the matter?" asked Bernard.

"There . . . look . . . that signature on the wall . . . where the
picture was: a signature and a date."

It was written in pencil; two lines across the white plaster, at a man's
height. The date, "Wednesday evening, 16 September, 1914," followed by
the signature: "Major Hermann."

Major Hermann! Even before Paul was aware of it, his eyes had seized
upon a detail in which all the significance of those two lines of
writing was concentrated; and, while Bernard came forward to look in his
turn, he muttered, in boundless surprise:

"Hermann! . . . Hermine! . . ."

The two words were almost alike. Hermine began with the same letters as
the Christian or surname which the major had written, after his rank, on
the wall. Major Hermann! The Comtesse Hermine! H, E, R, M: The four
letters on the dagger with which Paul had nearly been killed! H, E, R,
M: the four letters on the dagger of the spy whom he had captured in the
church-steeple!

Bernard said:

"It looks to me like a woman's writing. But, if so. . . ." And he
continued thoughtfully, "If so . . . what conclusion are we to draw?
Either the peasant-woman and Major Hermann are one and the same person,
which means that the peasant-woman is a man or that the major is not, or
else we are dealing with two distinct persons, a woman and a man. I
believe that is how it is, in spite of the uncanny resemblance between
that man and that woman. For, after all, how can we suppose that the
same person can have written this signature yesterday evening, passed
through the French lines and spoken to me at Corvigny disguised as a
peasant-woman . . . and then be able to return here, disguised as a
German major, blow up the house, take to flight and, after killing some
of his own soldiers, make his escape in a motor-car?"

Paul, absorbed by his thoughts, did not answer. Presently he went into
the adjoining room, which separated the boudoir from the set of rooms
which his wife had occupied. Of these nothing remained except debris.
But the room in between had not suffered so very much; and it was very
easy to see, by the wash-hand-stand and the condition of the bed, that
it was used as a bedroom and that some one had slept in it the night
before.

On the table Paul found some German newspapers and a French one, dated
10 September, in which the _communiqué_ telling of the great victory of
the Marne was struck out with two great dashes in red pencil and
annotated with the word "Lies!" followed by the initial H.

"We're in Major Hermann's room right enough," said Paul to Bernard.

"And Major Hermann," Bernard declared, "burnt some compromising papers
last night. Look at that heap of ashes in the fire-place." He stooped
and picked up a few envelopes, a few half-burnt sheets of paper
containing consecutive words, nothing but incoherent sentences. On
turning his eyes to the bed, however, he saw under the bolster a parcel
of clothes hidden or perhaps forgotten in the hurry of departure. He
pulled them out and at once cried: "I say, just look at this!"

"At what?" asked Paul, who was searching another part of the room.

"These clothes, look, peasant clothes, the clothes I saw on the woman at
Corvigny. There's no mistaking them: they are the same brown color and
the same sort of serge stuff. And then here's the black-lace scarf which
I told you about. . . ."

"What's that?" exclaimed Paul, running up to him.

"Here, see for yourself, it's a scarf of sorts and not one of the
newest, either. How worn and torn it is! And the brooch I described to
you is still in it. Do you see?"

Paul had noticed the brooch at once with the greatest horror. What a
terrible significance it lent to the discovery of the clothes in the
room occupied by Major Hermann, the room next to Hermine d'Andeville's
boudoir! The cameo was carved with a swan with its wings outspread and
was set in a gold snake with ruby eyes. Paul had known that cameo since
his early boyhood, from seeing it in the dress of the woman who killed
his father, and he knew it also because he had seen it again, with every
smallest detail reproduced, in the Comtesse Hermine's portrait. And now
he was finding the actual brooch, stuck in the black-lace scarf among
the Corvigny peasant-woman's clothes and left behind in Major Hermann's
room!

"This completes the evidence," said Bernard. "The fact that the clothes
are here proves that the woman who asked me about you came back here
last night; but what is the connection between her and that officer who
is her living likeness? Is the person who questioned me about you the
same as the individual who ordered Élisabeth to be shot two hours
earlier? And who are these people? What band of murderers and spies have
we run up against?"

"They are simply Germans," was Paul's reply. "To them spying and
murdering are natural and permissible forms of warfare . . . in a war,
mark you, which they began and are carrying on in the midst of a
perfectly peaceful period. I have told you so before, Bernard: we have
been the victims of war for nearly twenty years. My father's murder
opened the tragedy. And to-day we are mourning our poor Élisabeth. And
that is not the end of it."

"Still," said Bernard, "he has taken to flight."

"We shall see him again, be sure of that. If he doesn't come back, I
will go and find him. And, when that day comes. . . ."

There were two easy-chairs in the room. Paul and Bernard resolved to
spend the night there and, without further delay, wrote their names on
the wall of the passage. Then Paul went back to his men, in order to see
that they were comfortably settled in the barns and out-houses that
remained standing. Here the soldier who served as his orderly, a decent
Auvergnat called Gériflour, told him that he had dug out two pairs of
sheets and a couple of clean mattresses from a little house next to the
guard-room and that the beds were ready. Paul accepted the offer for
Bernard and himself. It was arranged that Gériflour and one of his
companions should go to the château and sleep in the two easy-chairs.

The night passed without any alarm. It was a feverish and sleepless
night for Paul, who was haunted by the thought of Élisabeth. In the
morning he fell into a heavy slumber, disturbed by nightmares. The
reveille woke him with a start. Bernard was waiting for him.

The roll was called in the courtyard of the château. Paul noticed that
his orderly, Gériflour, and the other man were missing.

"They must be asleep," he said to Bernard. "Let's go and shake them
awake."

They went back, through the ruins, to the first floor and along the
demolished bedroom. In the room which Major Hermann had occupied they
found Private Gériflour, huddled on the bed, covered with blood, dead.
His friend was lying back in one of the chairs, also dead. There was no
disorder, no trace of a struggle around the bodies. The two soldiers
must have been killed in their sleep.

Paul at once saw the weapon with which they had been murdered. It was a
dagger with the letters H, E, R, M. on the handle.



CHAPTER VIII

ÉLISABETH'S DIARY


This double murder, following upon a series of tragic incidents all of
which were closely connected, was the climax to such an accumulation of
horrors and of shocking disasters that the two young men did not utter a
word or stir a limb. Death, whose breath they had already felt so often
on the battlefield, had never appeared to them under a more hateful or
forbidding guise.

Death! They beheld it, not as an insidious disease that strikes at
hazard, but as a specter creeping in the shadow, watching its adversary,
choosing its moment and raising its arm with deliberate intention. And
this specter bore for them the very shape and features of Major Hermann.

When Paul spoke at last, his voice had the dull, scared tone that seems
to summon up the evil powers of darkness:

"He came last night. He came and, as we had written our names on the
wall, the names of Bernard d'Andeville and Paul Delroze which represent
the names of two enemies in his eyes, he took the opportunity to rid
himself of those two enemies. Persuaded that it was you and I who were
sleeping in this room, he struck . . . and those whom he struck were
poor Gériflour and his friend, who have died in our stead."

After a long pause, he whispered:

"They have died as my father died . . . and as Élisabeth died . . . and
the keeper also and his wife; and by the same hand, by the same hand,
Bernard, do you understand? . . . Yes, it's inadmissible, is it not? My
brain refuses to admit it. . . . And yet it is always the same hand that
holds the dagger . . . then and now."

Bernard examined the dagger. At the sight of the four letters, he said:

"That stands for Hermann, I suppose? Major Hermann?"

"Yes," said Paul, eagerly. "Is it his real name, though? And who is he
actually? I don't know. But what I do know is that the criminal who
committed all those murders is the same who signs with these four
letters, H, E, R, M."

After giving the alarm to the men of his section and sending to inform
the chaplain and the surgeons, Paul resolved to ask for a private
interview with his colonel and to tell him the whole of the secret
story, hoping that it might throw some light on the execution of
Élisabeth and the assassination of the two soldiers. But he learnt that
the colonel and his regiment were fighting on the other side of the
frontier and that the 3rd Company had been hurriedly sent for, all but
a detachment which was to remain at the château under Sergeant Delroze's
orders. Paul therefore made his own investigation with his men.

It yielded nothing. There was no possibility of discovering the least
clue to the manner in which the murderer had made his way first into the
park, next into the ruins and lastly into the bedroom. As no civilian
had passed, were they to conclude that the perpetrator of the two crimes
was one of the privates of the 3rd company? Obviously not. And yet what
other theory was there to adopt?

Nor did Paul discover anything to tell him of his wife's death or of the
place where she was buried. And this was the hardest trial of all.

He encountered the same ignorance among the German wounded as among the
prisoners. They had all heard of the execution of a man and two women,
but they had all arrived after the execution and after the departure of
the troops that occupied the château.

He went on to the village, thinking that they might know something
there; that the inhabitants had some news to tell of the lady of the
château, of the life she led, of her martyrdom and death. But Ornequin
was empty, with not a woman even, not an old man left in it. The enemy
must have sent all the inhabitants into Germany, doubtless from the
start, with the manifest object of destroying every witness to his
actions during the occupation and of creating a desert around the
château.

Paul in this way devoted three days to the pursuit of fruitless
inquiries.

"And yet," he said to Bernard, "Élisabeth cannot have disappeared
entirely. Even if I cannot find her grave, can I not find the least
trace of her existence? She lived here. She suffered here. I would give
anything for a relic of her."

They had succeeded in fixing upon the exact site of the room in which
she used to sleep and even, in the midst of the ruins, the exact heap of
stones and plaster that remained of it. It was all mixed up with the
wreckage of the ground-floor rooms, into which the first-floor ceilings
had been precipitated; and it was in this chaos, under the pile of walls
and furniture reduced to dust and fragments, that one morning he picked
up a little broken mirror, followed by a tortoise-shell hair-brush, a
silver pen-knife and a set of scissors, all of which had belonged to
Élisabeth.

But what affected him even more was the discovery of a thick diary, in
which he knew that his wife, before her marriage, used to note down her
expenses, the errands or visits that had to be remembered and,
occasionally, some more private details of her life. Now all that was
left of her diary was the binding, with the date, 1914, and the part
containing the entries for the first seven months of the year. All the
sheets for the last five months had been not torn out but removed
separately from the strings that fastened them to the binding.

Paul at once thought to himself:

"They were removed by Élisabeth, removed at her leisure, at a time when
there was no hurry and when she merely wished to use those pages for
writing on from day to day. What would she want to write? Just those
more personal notes which she used formerly to put down in her diary
between the entry of a disbursement and a receipt. And as there can have
been no accounts to keep since my departure and as her existence was
nothing but a hideous tragedy, there is no doubt that she confided her
distress to those pages, her complaints, possibly her shrinking from
me."

That day, in Bernard's absence, Paul increased the thoroughness of his
search. He rummaged under every stone and in every hole. The broken
slabs of marble, the twisted lustres, the torn carpets, the beams
blackened by the flames, he lifted them all. He persisted for hours. He
divided the ruins into sections which he examined patiently in rotation;
and, when the ruins refused to answer his questions, he renewed his
minute investigations in the ground.

His efforts were useless; and Paul knew that they were bound to be so.
Élisabeth must have attached far too much value to those pages not to
have either destroyed them or hidden them beyond the possibility of
discovery. Unless:

"Unless," he said to himself, "they have been stolen from her. The major
must have kept a constant watch upon her. And, in that case, who knows?"

An idea occurred to Paul's mind. After finding the peasant-woman's
clothes and black lace scarf, he had left them on the bed, attaching no
further importance to them; and he now asked himself if the major, on
the night when he had murdered the two soldiers, had not come with the
intention of fetching away the clothes, or at least the contents of
their pockets, which he had not been able to do because they were hidden
under Private Gériflour, who was sleeping on the top of them. Now Paul
seemed to remember that, when unfolding that peasant's skirt and bodice,
he had noticed a rustling of paper in one of the pockets. Was it not
reasonable to conclude that this was Élisabeth's diary, which had been
discovered and stolen by Major Hermann?

Paul hastened to the room in which the murders had been committed,
snatched up the clothes and looked through them:

"Ah," he at once exclaimed, with genuine delight, "here they are!"

There was a large, yellow envelope filled with the pages removed from
the diary. These were crumpled and here and there torn; and Paul saw at
a glance that the pages corresponded only with the months of August and
September and that even some days in each of these months were missing.

And he saw Élisabeth's handwriting.

It was not a full or detailed diary. It consisted merely of notes, poor
little notes in which a bruised heart found an outlet. At times, when
they ran to greater length, an extra page had been added. The notes had
been jotted down by day or night, anyhow, in ink and pencil; they were
sometimes hardly legible; and they gave the impression of a trembling
hand, of eyes veiled with tears and of a mind crazed with suffering.

Paul was moved to the very depths of his being. He was alone and he
read:


                                        "_Sunday, 2 August._

      "He ought not to have written me that letter. It is
      too cruel. And why does he suggest that I should leave
      Ornequin? The war? Does he think that, because there
      is a chance of war, I shall not have the courage to
      stay here and do my duty? How little he knows me! Then
      he must either think me a coward or believe me capable
      of suspecting my poor mother! . . . Paul, dear Paul,
      you ought not to have left me. . . .


                                        "_Monday, 3 August._

      "Jérôme and Rosalie have been kinder and more
      thoughtful than ever, now that the servants are gone.
      Rosalie begged and prayed that I should go away, too.

      "'And what about yourselves, Rosalie?' I said. 'Will
      you go?'

      "'Oh, we're people who don't matter, we have nothing
      to fear! Besides, our place is here.'

      "I said that so was mine; but I saw that she could not
      understand.

      "Jérôme, when I meet him, shakes his head and looks at
      me sadly.


                                       "_Tuesday, 4 August._

      "I have not the least doubt of what my duty is. I
      would rather die than turn my back on it. But how am I
      to fulfil that duty and get at the truth? I am full of
      courage; and yet I am always crying, as though I had
      nothing better to do. The fact is that I am always
      thinking of Paul. Where is he? What has become of him?
      When Jérôme told me this morning that war was
      declared, I thought that I should faint. So Paul is
      going to fight. He will be wounded perhaps. He may be
      killed. God knows if my true place is not somewhere
      near him, in a town close to where he is fighting!
      What have I to hope for in staying here? My duty to my
      mother, yes, I know. Ah, mother, I beseech your
      forgiveness . . . but, you see, I love my husband and
      I am so afraid of anything happening to him! . . .


                                      "_Thursday, 6 August._

      "Still crying. I grow unhappier every day. But I feel
      that, even if I became still more so, I would not
      desist. Besides, how can I go to him when he does not
      want to have anything more to do with me and does not
      even write? Love me? Why, he loathes me! I am the
      daughter of a woman whom he hates above all things in
      the world. How unspeakably horrible! If he thinks like
      that of my mother and if I fail in my task, we shall
      never see each other again! That is the life I have
      before me.


                                        "_Friday, 7 August._

      "I have made Jérôme and Rosalie tell me all about
      mother. They only knew her for a few weeks, but they
      remember her quite well; and what they said made me
      feel so happy! She was so good, it seems, and so
      pretty; everybody worshiped her.

      "'She was not always very cheerful,' said Rosalie. 'I
      don't know if it was her illness already affecting her
      spirits, but there was something about her, when she
      smiled, that went to one's heart.'

      "My poor, darling mother!


                                      "_Saturday, 8 August._

      "We heard the guns this morning, a long way off. They
      are fighting 25 miles away.

      "Some French soldiers have arrived. I had seen some of
      them pretty often from the terrace, marching down the
      Liseron Valley. But these are going to stay at the
      house. The captain made his apologies. So as not to
      inconvenience me, he and his lieutenants will sleep
      and have their meals in the lodge where Jérôme and
      Rosalie used to live.


                                        "_Sunday, 9 August._

      "Still no news of Paul. I have given up trying to
      write to him either. I don't want him to hear from me
      until I have all the proofs. But what am I to do? How
      can I get proofs of something that happened seventeen
      years ago? Hunt about, think and reflect as I may, I
      can find nothing.


                                       "_Monday, 10 August._

      "The guns never ceased booming in the distance.
      Nevertheless, the captain tells me that there is
      nothing to make one expect an attack by the enemy on
      this side.


                                      "_Tuesday, 11 August._

      "A sentry posted in the woods, near the little door
      leading out of the estate, has just been
      killed--stabbed with a knife. They think that he must
      have been trying to stop a man who wanted to get out
      of the park. But how did the man get in?


                                    "_Wednesday, 12 August._

      "What can be happening? Here is something that has
      made a great impression on me and seems impossible to
      understand. There are other things besides which are
      just as perplexing, though I can't say why. I am much
      astonished that the captain and all his soldiers whom
      I meet appear so indifferent and should even be able
      to make jokes among themselves. I feel the sort of
      depression that comes over one when a storm is at
      hand. There must be something wrong with my nerves.

      "Well, this morning. . . ."

Paul stopped reading. The lower portion of the page containing the last
few lines and the whole of the next page were torn out. It looked as if
the major, after stealing Élisabeth's diary, had, for reasons best known
to himself, removed the pages in which she set forth a certain incident.

The diary continued:


                                       "_Friday, 14 August._

      "I felt I must tell the captain. I took him to the
      dead tree covered with ivy and asked him to lie down
      on the ground and listen. He did so very patiently and
      attentively. But he heard nothing and ended by saying:

      "'You see, madame, that everything is absolutely
      normal.'

      "'I assure you,' I answered, 'that two days ago there
      was a confused sound from this tree, just at this
      spot. And it lasted for several minutes.'

      "He replied, smiling as he spoke:

      "'We could easily have the tree cut down. But don't
      you think, madame, that in the state of nervous
      tension in which we all are we are liable to make
      mistakes; that we are subject to hallucinations? For,
      after all, where could the sound come from?'

      "Of course, he was right. And yet I had heard and seen
      for myself. . . .


                                     "_Saturday, 15 August._

      "Yesterday, two German officers were brought in and
      were locked up in the wash-house, at the end of the
      yard. This morning, there was nothing in the
      wash-house but their uniforms. One can understand
      their breaking open the door. But the captain has
      found out that they made their escape in French
      uniforms and that they passed the sentries, saying
      that they had been sent to Corvigny.

      "Who can have supplied them with those uniforms?
      Besides, they had to know the password: who can have
      given them that?

      "It appears that a peasant woman called several days
      in succession with eggs and milk, a woman rather too
      well-dressed for her station, and that she hasn't been
      here to-day. But there is nothing to prove her
      complicity.


                                       "_Sunday, 16 August._

      "The captain has been strongly urging me to go away.
      He is no longer cheerful. He seems very much
      preoccupied:

      "'We are surrounded by spies,' he said. 'And there is
      every sign of the possibility of a speedy attack. Not
      a big attack, intended to force a way through to
      Corvigny, but an attempt to take the château by
      surprise. It is my duty to warn you, madame, that we
      may be compelled at any moment to fall back on
      Corvigny and that it would be most imprudent for you
      to stay.'

      "I answered that nothing would change my resolution.
      Jérôme and Rosalie also implored me to leave. But what
      is the good? I intend to remain."

Once again Paul stopped. There was a page missing in this section of the
diary; and the next page, the one headed 18 August, was torn at the top
and the bottom and contained only a fragment of what Élisabeth had
written on that day:

      ". . . and that is why I have not spoken of it in the
      letter which I have just sent to Paul. He will know
      that I am staying on and the reasons for my decision;
      but he must not know of my hopes.

      "Those hopes are still so vague and built on so
      insignificant a detail. Still, I feel overjoyed. I do
      not realize the meaning of that detail, but I feel its
      importance. The captain is hurrying about, increasing
      the patrols; the soldiers are polishing their arms and
      crying out for the battle; the enemy may be taking up
      his quarters at Èbrecourt, as they say: what do I
      care? I have only one thought: have I found the key?
      Am I on the right road? Let me think. . . ."

The page was torn here, at the place where Élisabeth was about to
explain things exactly. Was this a precautionary measure on Major
Hermann's part? No doubt; but why?

The first part of the page headed 19 August was likewise torn. The
nineteenth was the day before t on which the Germans had carried
Ornequin, Corvigny and the whole district by assault. What had Élisabeth
written on that Wednesday afternoon? What had she discovered? What was
preparing in the darkness?

Paul felt a dread at his heart. He remembered that the first gunshot had
thundered over Corvigny at two o'clock in the morning on Thursday and it
was with an anxious mind that he read, on the second half of the page:


                                                 "_11 p. m._

      "I have got up and opened my window. Dogs are barking
      on every side. They answer one another, stop, seem to
      be listening and then begin howling again as I have
      never heard them do before. When they cease, the
      silence becomes impressive and I listen in my turn to
      try and catch the indistinct sounds that keep them
      awake.

      "Those sounds seem to my ears also to exist. It is
      something different from the rustling of the leaves.
      It has nothing to do with the ordinary interruption to
      the dead silence of the night. It comes from I can't
      tell where; and the impression it makes on me is so
      powerful that I ask myself at the same time whether I
      am just listening to the beating of my heart or
      whether I am hearing what might be the distant tramp
      of a marching army.

      "Oh, I must be mad! A marching army! And our outposts
      on the frontier? And our sentries all around the
      château? Why, there would be fighting, firing! . . .


                                                  "_1 a. m._

      "I did not stir from the window. The dogs were no
      longer barking. Everything was asleep. And suddenly I
      saw some one come from under the trees and go across
      the lawn. I at first imagined it was one of our
      soldiers. But, when whoever it was passed under my
      window, there was just enough light in the sky for me
      to make out a woman's figure. I thought for a moment
      of Rosalie. But no, the figure was taller and moved
      with a lighter and quicker step.

      "I was on the point of waking Jérôme and giving the
      alarm. I did not, however. The figure had disappeared
      in the direction of the terrace. And all at once there
      came the cry of a bird, which struck me as strange.
      This was followed by a light that darted into the sky,
      like a shooting star springing from the ground.

      "After that, nothing. Silence, general restfulness.
      Nothing more. And yet I dare not go back to bed. I am
      frightened, without knowing why. All sorts of dangers
      seem to come rushing from every corner of the horizon.
      They draw closer, they surround me, they hem me in,
      they suffocate me, crush me, I can't breathe. I'm
      frightened . . . I'm frightened. . . ."



CHAPTER IX

A SPRIG OF EMPIRE


Paul clutched with convulsive fingers the heart-breaking diary to which
Élisabeth had confided her anguish:

"The poor angel!" he thought. "What she must have gone through! And this
is only the beginning of the road that led to her death. . . ."

He dreaded reading on. The hours of torture were near at hand, menacing
and implacable, and he would have liked to call out to Élisabeth:

"Go away, go away! Don't defy Fate! I have forgotten the past. I love
you."

It was too late. He himself, through his cruelty, had condemned her to
suffer; and he must go on to the bitter end and witness every station of
the Calvary of which he knew the last, terrifying stage.

He hastily turned the pages. There were first three blank leaves, those
dated 20, 21 and 22 August: days of confusion during which she had been
unable to write. The pages of the 23rd and 24th were missing. These no
doubt recounted what had happened and contained revelations concerning
the inexplicable invasion.

The diary began again at the middle of a torn page, the page belonging
to Tuesday the 25th:

      "'Yes, Rosalie, I feel quite well and I thank you for
      looking after me so attentively.'

      "'Then there's no more fever?'

      "'No, Rosalie, it's gone.'

      "'You said the same thing yesterday, ma'am, and the
      fever came back . . . perhaps because of that visit.
      . . . But the visit won't be to-day . . . it's not
      till to-morrow. . . . I was told to let you know,
      ma'am. . . . At 5 o'clock to-morrow. . . .'

      "I made no answer. What is the use of rebelling? None
      of the humiliating words that I shall have to hear
      will hurt me more than what lies before my eyes: the
      lawn invaded, horses picketed all over it, baggage
      wagons and caissons in the walks, half the trees
      felled, officers sprawling on the grass, drinking and
      singing, and a German flag flapping from the balcony
      of my window, just in front of me. Oh, the wretches!

      "I close my eyes so as not to see. And that makes it
      more horrible still. . . . Oh, the memory of that
      night . . . and, in the morning, when the sun rose,
      the sight of all those dead bodies! Some of the poor
      fellows were still alive, with those monsters dancing
      round them; and I could hear the cries of the dying
      men asking to be put out of their misery.

      "And then. . . . But I won't think of it or think of
      anything that can destroy my courage and my hope.
      . . .

      "Paul, I always have you in my mind as I write my
      diary. Something tells me that you will read it if
      anything happens to me; and so I must have strength to
      go on with it and to keep you informed from day to
      day. Perhaps you can already understand from my story
      what to me still seems very obscure. What is the
      connection between the past and the present, between
      the murder of long ago and the incomprehensible attack
      of the other night? I don't know. I have told you the
      facts in detail and also my theories. You will draw
      your conclusions and follow up the truth to the end.


                                    "_Wednesday, 26 August._

      "There is a great deal of noise in the château. People
      are moving about everywhere, especially in the rooms
      above my bedroom. An hour ago, half a dozen motor vans
      and the same number of motor cars drove onto the lawn.
      The vans were empty. Two or three ladies sprang out of
      each of the cars, German women, waving their hands and
      laughing noisily. The officers ran up to welcome them;
      and there were loud expressions of delight. Then they
      all went to the house. What do they want?

      "But I hear footsteps in the passage. . . . It is 5
      o'clock. . . . Somebody is knocking at the door. . . .

             *       *       *       *       *

      "There were five of them: he first and four officers
      who kept bowing to him obsequiously. He said to them,
      in a formal tone:

      "'Attention, gentlemen. . . . I order you not to touch
      anything in this room or in the other rooms reserved
      for madame. As for the rest, except in the two big
      drawing-rooms, it is yours. Keep anything here that
      you want and take away what you please. It is war and
      the law of war.'

      "He pronounced those words, 'The law of war,' in a
      tone of fatuous conviction and repeated:

      "'As for madame's private apartments, not a thing is
      to be moved. Do you understand? I know what is
      becoming.'

      "He looked at me as though to say:

      "'What do you think of that? There's chivalry for you!
      I could take it all, if I liked; but I'm a German and,
      as such, I know what's becoming.'

      "He seemed to expect me to thank him. I said:

      "'Is this the pillage beginning? That explains the
      empty motor vans.'

      "'You don't pillage what belongs to you by the law of
      war,' he answered.

      "'I see. And the law of war does not extend to the
      furniture and pictures in the drawing-rooms?'

      "He turned crimson. Then I began to laugh:

      "'I follow you,' I said. 'That's your share. Well
      chosen. Nothing but rare and valuable things. The
      refuse your servants can divide among them.'

      "The officers turned round furiously. He became redder
      still. He had a face that was quite round, hair, which
      was too light, plastered down with grease and divided
      in the middle by a faultless parting. His forehead
      was low; and I was able to guess the effort going on
      behind it, to find a repartee. At last he came up to
      me and, in a voice of triumph, said:

      "'The French have been beaten at Charleroi, beaten at
      Morange, beaten everywhere. They are retreating all
      along the line. The upshot of the war is settled.'

      "Violent though my grief was, I did not wince. I
      whispered:

      "'You low blackguard!'

      "He staggered. His companions caught what I said; and
      I saw one put his hand on his sword-hilt. But what
      would he himself do? What would he say? I could feel
      that he was greatly embarrassed and that I had wounded
      his self-esteem.

      "'Madame,' he said, 'I daresay you don't know who I
      am?'

      "'Oh, yes!' I answered. 'You are Prince Conrad, a son
      of the Kaiser's. And what then?'

      "He made a fresh attempt at dignity. He drew himself
      up. I expected threats and words to express his anger;
      but no, his reply was a burst of laughter, the
      affected laughter of a high and mighty lord, too
      indifferent, too disdainful to take offense, too
      intelligent to lose his temper.

      "'The dear little Frenchwoman! Isn't she charming,
      gentlemen? Did you hear what she said? The
      impertinence of her! There's your true Parisian,
      gentlemen, with all her roguish grace.'

      "And, making me a great bow, with not another word, he
      stalked away, joking as he went:

      "'Such a dear little Frenchwoman! Ah, gentlemen, those
      little Frenchwomen! . . .'

             *       *       *       *       *

      "The vans were at work all day, going off to the
      frontier laden with booty. It was my poor father's
      wedding present to us, all his collections so
      patiently and fondly brought together; it was the dear
      setting in which Paul and I were to have lived. What a
      wrench the parting means to me!

      "The war news is bad! I cried a great deal during the
      day.

      "Prince Conrad came. I had to receive him, for he sent
      me word by Rosalie that, if I refused to see him, the
      inhabitants of Ornequin would suffer the
      consequences."

Here Élisabeth again broke off her diary. Two days later, on the 29th,
she went on:

      "He came yesterday. To-day also. He tries to appear
      witty and cultured. He talks literature and music,
      Goethe, Wagner and so on. . . . I leave him to do his
      own talking, however; and this throws him in such a
      state of fury that he ended by exclaiming:

      "'Can't you answer? It's no disgrace, even for a
      Frenchwoman, to talk to Prince Conrad of Prussia!'

      "'A woman doesn't talk to her gaoler.'

      "He protested briskly:

      "'But, dash it all, you're not in prison!'

      "'Can I leave the château?'

      "'You can walk about . . . in the grounds. . . .'

      "'Between four walls, therefore, like a prisoner.'

      "'Well, what do you want to do?'

      "'To go away from here and live . . . wherever you
      tell me to: at Corvigny, for instance.'

      "'That is to say, away from me!'

      "As I did not answer, he bent forward a little and
      continued, in a low voice:

      "'You hate me, don't you? Oh, I'm quite aware of it!
      I've made a study of women. Only, it's Prince Conrad
      whom you hate, isn't it? It's the German, the
      conqueror. For, after all, there's no reason why you
      should dislike the man himself. . . . And, at this
      moment, it's the man who is in question, who is trying
      to please you . . . do you understand? . . . So.
      . . .'

      "I had risen to my feet and faced him. I did not speak
      a single word; but he must have seen in my eyes so
      great an expression of disgust that he stopped in the
      middle of his sentence, looking absolutely stupid.
      Then, his nature getting the better of him, he shook
      his fist at me, like a common fellow, and went off
      slamming the door and muttering threats. . . ."

The next two pages of the diary were missing. Paul was gray in the face.
He had never suffered to such an extent as this. It seemed to him as
though his poor dear Élisabeth were still alive before his eyes and
feeling his eyes upon her. And nothing could have upset him more than
the cry of distress and love which marked the page headed:


                                              _1 September._

      "Paul, my own Paul, have no fear. Yes, I tore up those
      two pages because I did not wish you ever to know such
      revolting things. But that will not estrange you from
      me, will it? Because a savage dared to insult me, that
      is no reason, surely, why I should not be worthy of
      your love? Oh, the things he said to me, Paul, only
      yesterday: his offensive remarks, his hateful threats,
      his even more infamous promises . . . and then his
      rage! . . . No, I will not repeat them to you. In
      making a confidant of this diary, I meant to confide
      to you my daily acts and thoughts. I believed that I
      was only writing down the evidence of my grief. But
      this is something different; and I have not the
      courage. . . . Forgive my silence. It will be enough
      for you to know the offense, so that you may avenge me
      later. Ask me no more. . . ."

And, pursuing this intention, Élisabeth now ceased to describe Prince
Conrad's daily visits in detail; but it was easy to perceive from her
narrative that the enemy persisted in hovering round her. It consisted
of brief notes in which she no longer let herself go as before, notes
which she jotted down at random, marking the days herself, without
troubling about the printed headings.

Paul trembled as he read on. And fresh revelations aggravated his dread:


                                                "_Thursday._

      "Rosalie asks them the news every morning. The French
      retreat is continuing. They even say that it has
      developed into a rout and that Paris has been
      abandoned. The government has fled. We are done for.


                            "_Seven o'clock in the evening._

      "He is walking under my windows as usual. He has with
      him a woman whom I have already seen many times at a
      distance and who always wears a great peasant's cloak
      and a lace scarf which hides her face. But, as a rule,
      when he walks on the lawn he is accompanied by an
      officer whom they call the major. This man also keeps
      his head concealed, by turning up the collar of his
      gray cloak.


                                                  "_Friday._

      "The soldiers are dancing on the lawn, while their
      band plays German national hymns and the bells of
      Ornequin are kept ringing with all their might. They
      are celebrating the entrance of their troops into
      Paris. It must be true, I fear! Their joy is the best
      proof of the truth.


                                                "_Saturday._

      "Between my rooms and the boudoir where mother's
      portrait used to hang is the room that was mother's
      bedroom. This is now occupied by the major. He is an
      intimate friend of the prince and an important person,
      so they say. The soldiers know him only as Major
      Hermann. He does not humble himself in the prince's
      presence as the other officers do. On the contrary, he
      seems to address him with a certain familiarity.

      "At this minute they are walking side by side on the
      gravel path. The prince is leaning on Major Hermann's
      arm. I feel sure that they are talking about me and
      that they are not at one. It looks almost as if Major
      Hermann were angry.


                              "_Ten o'clock in the morning._

      "I was right. Rosalie tells me that they had a violent
      scene.


                                    "_Tuesday, 8 September._

      "There is something strange in the behavior of all of
      them. The prince, the major and the other officers
      appear to be nervous about something. The soldiers
      have ceased singing. There are sounds of quarreling.
      Can things be turning in our favor?"


                                                "_Thursday._

      "The excitement is increasing. It seems that couriers
      keep on arriving at every moment. The officers have
      sent part of their baggage into Germany. I am full of
      hope. But, on the other hand. . . .

      "Oh, my dear Paul, if you knew the torture those
      visits cause me! . . . He is no longer the bland and
      honey-mouthed man of the early days. He has thrown off
      the mask. . . . But, no, no, I will not speak of that!
      . . .


                                                  "_Friday._

      "The whole of the village of Ornequin has been packed
      off to Germany. They don't want a single witness to
      remain of what happened during the awful night which I
      described to you.


                                          "_Sunday evening._

      "They are defeated and retreating far from Paris. He
      confessed as much, grinding his teeth and uttering
      threats against me as he spoke. I am the hostage on
      whom they are revenging themselves. . . .


                                                 "_Tuesday._

      "Paul, if ever you meet him in battle, kill him like a
      dog. But do those people fight? Oh, I don't know what
      I'm saying! My head is going round and round. Why did
      I stay here? You ought to have taken me away, Paul, by
      force. . . .

      "Paul, what do you think he has planned? Oh, the
      dastard! They have kept twelve of the Ornequin
      villagers as hostages; and it is I, it is I who am
      responsible for their lives! . . . Do you understand
      the horror of it? They will live, or they will be
      shot, one by one, according to my behavior. . . . The
      thing seems too infamous to believe. Is he only trying
      to frighten me? Oh, the shamefulness of such a threat!
      What a hell to find one's self in! I would rather
      die. . . .


                             "_Nine o'clock in the evening._

      "Die? No! Why should I die? Rosalie has been. Her
      husband has come to an understanding with one of the
      sentries who will be on duty to-night at the little
      door in the wall, beyond the chapel. Rosalie is to
      wake me up at three in the morning and we shall run
      away to the big wood, where Jérôme knows of an
      inaccessible shelter. Heavens, if we can only succeed!
      . . .


                                          "_Eleven o'clock._

      "What has happened? Why have I got up? It's only a
      nightmare. I am sure of that; and yet I am shaking
      with fever and hardly able to write. . . . And why am
      I afraid to drink the glass of water by my bedside, as
      I am accustomed to do when I cannot sleep?

      "Oh, such an abominable nightmare! How shall I ever
      forget what I saw while I slept? For I was asleep,
      that is certain. I had lain down to get a little rest
      before running away; and I saw that woman's ghost in a
      dream. . . . A ghost? It must have been one, for only
      ghosts can enter through a bolted door; and her steps
      made so little noise as she crept over the floor that
      I scarcely heard the faintest rustling of her skirt.

      "What had she come to do? By the glimmer of my
      night-light I saw her go round the table and walk up
      to my bed, cautiously, with her head lost in the
      darkness of the room. I was so frightened that I
      closed my eyes, in order that she might believe me to
      be asleep. But the feeling of her very presence and
      approach increased within me; and I was able clearly
      to follow all her doings. She stooped over me and
      looked at me for a long time, as though she did not
      know me and wanted to study my face. How was it that
      she did not hear the frantic beating of my heart? I
      could hear hers and also the regular movement of her
      breath. The agony I went through! Who was the woman?
      What was her object?

      "She ceased her scrutiny and went away, but not very
      far. Through my eyelids I could half see her bending
      beside me, occupied in some silent task; and at last I
      became so certain that she was no longer watching me
      that I gradually yielded to the temptation to open my
      eyes. I wanted, if only for a second, to see her face
      and what she was doing.

      "I looked; and Heaven only knows by what miracle I had
      the strength to keep back the cry that tried to force
      its way through my lips! The woman who stood there and
      whose features I was able to make out plainly by the
      light of the night-light was. . . .

      "Ah, I can't write anything so blasphemous! If the
      woman had been beside me, kneeling down, praying, and
      I had seen a gentle face smiling through its tears, I
      should not have trembled before that unexpected vision
      of the dead. But this distorted, fierce, infernal
      expression, hideous with hatred and wickedness: no
      sight in the world could have filled me with greater
      terror. And it is perhaps for this reason, because
      the sight was so extravagant and unnatural, that I did
      not cry out and that I am now almost calm. _At the
      moment when my eyes saw, I understood that I was the
      victim of a nightmare._

      "Mother, mother, you never wore and you never can wear
      that expression. You were kind and gentle, were you
      not? You used to smile; and, if you were still alive,
      you would now be wearing that same kind and gentle
      look? Mother, darling, since the terrible night when
      Paul recognized your portrait, I have often been back
      to that room, to learn to know my mother's face, which
      I had forgotten: I was so young, mother, when you
      died! And, though I was sorry that the painter had
      given you a different expression from the one I should
      have liked to see, at least it was not the wicked and
      malignant expression of just now. Why should you hate
      me? I am your daughter. Father has often told me that
      we had the same smile, you and I, and also that your
      eyes would grow moist with tears when you looked at
      me. So you do not loathe me, do you? And I did dream,
      did I not?

      "Or, at least, if I was not dreaming when I saw a
      woman in my room, I was dreaming when that woman
      seemed to me to have your face. It was a delirious
      hallucination, it must have been. I had looked at your
      portrait so long and thought of you so much that I
      gave the stranger the features which I knew; and it
      was she, not you, who bore that hateful expression.

      "And so I sha'n't drink the water. What she poured
      into it must have been poison . . . or perhaps a
      powerful sleeping-drug which would make me helpless
      against the prince. . . . And I cannot but think of
      the woman who sometimes walks with him. . . .

      "As for me, I know nothing, I understand nothing, my
      thoughts are whirling in my tired brain. . . .

      "It will soon be three o'clock. . . . I am waiting for
      Rosalie. It is a quiet night. There is not a sound in
      the house or outside. . . .

      "It is striking three. Ah, to be away from this! . . .
      To be free! . . ."



CHAPTER X

75 OR 155?


Paul Delroze anxiously turned the page, as though hoping that the plan
of escape might have proved successful; and he received, as it were, a
fresh shock of grief on reading the first lines, written the following
morning, in an almost illegible hand:

      "We were denounced, betrayed. . . . Twenty men were
      spying on our movements. . . . They fell upon us like
      brutes. . . . I am now locked up in the park lodge. A
      little lean-to beside it is serving as a prison for
      Jérôme and Rosalie. They are bound and gagged. I am
      free, but there are soldiers at the door. I can hear
      them speaking to one another.


                                          "_Twelve mid-day._

      "It is very difficult for me to write to you, Paul.
      The sentry on duty opens the door and watches my every
      movement. They did not search me, so I was able to
      keep the leaves of my diary; and I write to you
      hurriedly, by scraps at a time, in a dark corner.
      . . .

      "My diary! Shall you find it, Paul? Will you know all
      that has happened and what has become of me? If only
      they don't take it from me! . . .

      "They have brought me bread and water! I am still
      separated from Rosalie and Jérôme. They have not given
      them anything to eat.


                                             "_Two o'clock._

      "Rosalie has managed to get rid of her gag. She is now
      speaking to me in an undertone through the wall. She
      heard what the men who are guarding us said and she
      tells me that Prince Conrad left last night for
      Corvigny; that the French are approaching and that the
      soldiers here are very uneasy. Are they going to
      defend themselves, or will they fall back towards the
      frontier? . . . It was Major Hermann who prevented our
      escape. Rosalie says that we are done for. . . .


                                           "_Half-past two._

      "Rosalie and I had to stop speaking. I have just asked
      her what she meant, why we should be done for. She
      maintains that Major Hermann is a devil:

      "'Yes, devil,' she repeated. 'And, as he has special
      reasons for acting against you. . . .'

      "'What reasons, Rosalie?'

      "'I will explain later. But you may be sure that if
      Prince Conrad does not come back from Corvigny in time
      to save us, Major Hermann will seize the opportunity
      to have all three of us shot. . . .'"

Paul positively roared with rage when he saw the dreadful word set down
in his poor Élisabeth's hand. It was on one of the last pages. After
that there were only a few sentences written at random, across the
paper, obviously in the dark, sentences that seemed breathless as the
voice of one dying:

      "The tocsin! . . . The wind carries the sound from
      Corvigny. . . . What can it mean? . . . The French
      troops? . . . Paul, Paul, perhaps you are with them!
      . . .

      "Two soldiers came in, laughing:

      "'Lady's _kaput_! . . . All three _kaput_! . . . Major
      Hermann said so: they're _kaput_!'

      "I am alone again. . . . We are going to die. . . .
      But Rosalie wants to talk to me and daren't. . . .


                                            "_Five o'clock._

      "The French artillery. . . . Shells bursting round the
      château. . . . Oh, if one of them could hit me! . . .
      I hear Rosalie's voice. . . . What has she to tell me?
      What secret has she discovered?

      "Oh, horror! Oh, the vile truth! Rosalie has spoken.
      Dear God, I beseech Thee, give me time to write. . . .
      Paul, you could never imagine. . . . You must be told
      before I die. . . . Paul. . . ."

The rest of the page was torn out; and the following pages, to the end
of the month, were blank. Had Élisabeth had the time and the strength
to write down what Rosalie had revealed to her?

This was a question which Paul did not even ask himself. What cared he
for those revelations and the darkness that once again and for good
shrouded the truth which he could no longer hope to discover? What cared
he for vengeance or Prince Conrad or Major Hermann or all those savages
who tortured and slew women? Élisabeth was dead. She had, so to speak,
died before his eyes. Nothing outside that fact was worth a thought or
an effort. Faint and stupefied by a sudden fit of cowardice, his eyes
still fixed on the diary in which his poor wife had jotted down the
phases of the most cruel martyrdom imaginable, he felt an immense
longing for death and oblivion steal slowly over him. Élisabeth was
calling to him. Why go on fighting? Why not join her?

Then some one tapped him on the shoulder. A hand seized the revolver
which he was holding; and Bernard said:

"Drop that, Paul. If you think that a soldier has the right to kill
himself at the present time, I will leave you free to do so when you
have heard what I have to say."

Paul made no protest. The temptation to die had come to him, but almost
without his knowing it; and, though he would perhaps have yielded to it,
in a moment of madness, he was still in the state of mind in which a man
soon recovers his consciousness.

"Speak," he said.

"It will not take long. Three minutes will give me time to explain.
Listen to me. I see, from the writing, that you have found a diary kept
by Élisabeth. Does it confirm what you knew?"

"Yes."

"When Élisabeth wrote it, was she threatened with death as well as
Jérôme and Rosalie?"

"Yes."

"And all three were shot on the day when you and I arrived at Corvigny,
that is to say, on Wednesday, the sixteenth?"

"Yes."

"It was between five and six in the afternoon, on the day before the
Thursday when we arrived here, at the Château d'Ornequin?"

"Yes, but why these questions?"

"Why? Look at this, Paul. I took from you and I hold in my hand the
splinter of shell which you removed from the wall of the lodge at the
exact spot where Élisabeth was shot. Here it is. There was a lock of
hair still sticking to it."

"Well?"

"Well, I had a talk just now with an adjutant of artillery, who was
passing by the château; and the result of our conversation and of his
inspection was that the splinter does not belong to a shell fired from a
75-centimeter gun, but to a shell fired from a 155-centimeter gun, a
Rimailho."

"I don't understand."

"You don't understand, because you don't know or because you have
forgotten what my adjutant reminded me of. On the Corvigny day,
Wednesday the sixteenth, the batteries which opened fire and dropped a
few shells on the château at the moment when the execution was taking
place were all batteries of seventy-fives; and our one-five-five
Rimailhos did not fire until the next day, Thursday, while we were
marching against the château. Therefore, as Élisabeth was shot and
buried at about 6 o'clock on the Wednesday evening, it is physically
impossible for a splinter of a shell fired from a Rimailho to have taken
off a lock of her hair, because the Rimailhos were not fired until the
Thursday morning."

"Then you mean to say. . . ." murmured Paul, in a husky voice.

"I mean to say, how can we doubt that the Rimailho splinter was picked
up from the ground on the Thursday morning and deliberately driven into
the wall among some locks of hair cut off on the evening before?"

"But you're crazy, Bernard! What object can there have been in that?"

Bernard gave a smile:

"Well, of course, the object of making people think that Élisabeth had
been shot when she hadn't."

Paul rushed at him and shook him:

"You know something, Bernard, or you wouldn't be laughing! Can't you
speak? How do you account for the bullets in the wall of the lodge? And
the iron chain? And that third ring?"

"Just so. There were too many stage properties. When an execution takes
place, does one see marks of bullets like that? And did you ever find
Élisabeth's body? How do you know that they did not take pity on her
after shooting Jérôme and his wife? Or who can tell? Some one may have
interfered. . . ."

Paul felt some little hope steal over him. Élisabeth, after being
condemned to death by Major Hermann, had perhaps been saved by Prince
Conrad, returning from Corvigny before the execution.

He stammered:

"Perhaps . . . yes . . . perhaps. . . . And then there's this: Major
Hermann knew of our presence at Corvigny--remember your meeting with
that peasant woman--and wanted Élisabeth at any rate to be dead for us,
so that we might give up looking for her. I expect Major Hermann
arranged those properties, as you call them. How can I tell? Have I any
right to hope?"

Bernard came closer to him and said, solemnly:

"It's not hope, Paul, that I'm bringing you, but a certainty. I wanted
to prepare you for it. And now listen. My reason for asking those
questions of the artillery adjutant was that I might check facts which I
already knew. Yes, when I was at Ornequin village just now, a convoy of
German prisoners arrived from the frontier. I was able to exchange a few
words with one of them who had formed part of the garrison of the
château. He had seen things, therefore. He knew. Well, Élisabeth was
not shot. Prince Conrad prevented the execution."

"What's that? What's that?" cried Paul, overcome with joy. "You're quite
sure? She's alive?"

"Yes, alive. . . . They've taken her to Germany."

"But since then? For, after all, Major Hermann may have caught up with
her and succeeded in his designs."

"No."

"How do you know?"

"Through that prisoner. The French lady whom he had seen here he saw
this morning."

"Where?"

"Not far from the frontier, in a village just outside Èbrecourt, under
the protection of the man who saved her and who is certainly capable of
defending her against Major Hermann."

"What's that?" repeated Paul, but in a dull voice this time and with a
face distorted with anger.

"Prince Conrad, who seems to take his soldiering in a very amateurish
spirit--he is looked upon as an idiot, you know, even in his own
family--has made Èbrecourt his headquarters and calls on Élisabeth every
day. There is no fear, therefore. . . ." But Bernard interrupted
himself, and asked in amazement, "Why, what's the matter? You're gray in
the face."

Paul took his brother-in-law by the shoulders and shouted:

"Élisabeth is lost. Prince Conrad has fallen in love with her--we heard
that before, you know; and her diary is one long cry of distress--he has
fallen in love with her and he never lets go his prey. Do you
understand? He will stop at nothing!"

"Oh, Paul, I can't believe. . . ."

"At nothing, I tell you. He is not only an idiot, but a scoundrel and a
blackguard. When you read the diary you will understand. . . . But
enough of words, Bernard. What we have to do is to act and to act at
once, without even taking time to reflect."

"What do you propose?"

"To snatch Élisabeth from that man's clutches, to deliver her."

"Impossible."

"Impossible? We are not eight miles from the place where my wife is a
prisoner, exposed to that rascal's insults, and you think that I am
going to stay here with my arms folded? Nonsense! We must show that we
have blood in our veins! To work, Bernard! And if you hesitate I shall
go alone."

"You will go alone? Where?"

"To Èbrecourt. I don't want any one with me. I need no assistance. A
German uniform will be enough. I shall cross the frontier in the dark. I
shall kill the enemies who have to be killed and to-morrow morning
Élisabeth shall be here, free."

Bernard shook his head and said, gently:

"My poor Paul!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I should have been the first to agree and that we should
have rushed to Élisabeth's rescue together, without counting the risk.
Unfortunately. . . ."

"What?"

"Well, it's this, Paul: there is no intention on our side of taking a
more vigorous offensive. They've sent for reserve and territorial
regiments; and we are leaving."

"Leaving?" stammered Paul, in dismay.

"Yes, this evening. Our division is to start from Corvigny this evening
and go I don't know where . . . to Rheims, perhaps, or Arras. North and
west, in short. So you see, my poor chap, your plan can't be realized.
Come, buck up. And don't look so distressed. It breaks my heart to see
you. After all, Élisabeth isn't in danger. She will know how to defend
herself. . . ."

Paul did not answer. He remembered Prince Conrad's abominable words,
quoted by Élisabeth in her diary:

"It is war. It is the law, the law of war."

He felt the tremendous weight of that law bearing upon him, but he felt
at the same time that he was obeying it in its noblest and loftiest
phase, the sacrifice of the individual to everything demanded by the
safety of the nation.

The law of war? No, the duty of war; and a duty so imperious that a man
does not discuss it and that, implacable though it be, he must not even
allow the merest quiver of a complaint to stir in his secret soul.
Whether Élisabeth was faced by death or by dishonor did not concern
Sergeant Paul Delroze and could not make him turn for a second from the
path which he was ordered to follow. He was a soldier first and a man
afterwards. He owed no duty save to France, his sorely-stricken and
beloved country.

He carefully folded up Élisabeth's diary and went out, followed by his
brother-in-law.

At nightfall he left the Château d'Ornequin.



CHAPTER XI

"YSERY, MISERY"


Toul, Bar-le-Duc, Vitry-le-François. . . . The little towns sped past as
the long train carried Paul and Bernard westwards into France. Other,
numberless trains came before or after theirs, laden with troops and
munitions of war. They reached the outskirts of Paris and turned north,
passing through Beauvais, Amiens and Arras.

It was necessary that they should arrive there first, on the frontier,
to join the heroic Belgians and to join them as high up as possible.
Every mile of ground covered was so much territory snatched from the
invader during the long immobilized war that was in preparation.

Second Lieutenant Paul Delroze--he had received his new rank in the
course of the railway journey--accomplished the northward march as it
were in a dream, fighting every day, risking his life every minute,
leading his men with irresistible dash, but all as though he were doing
it without his own cognizance, in obedience to the automatic operation
of a predetermined will.

While Bernard continued to stake his life with a laugh, as though in
play, keeping up his comrade's courage with his own light-hearted pluck,
Paul remained speechless and absent. Everything--fatigue, privations,
the weather--seemed to him a matter of indifference.

Nevertheless, it was an immense delight, as he would sometimes confess
to Bernard, to be going towards the fighting line. He had the feeling
that he was making for a definite object, the only one that interested
him: Élisabeth's deliverance. Even though he was attacking this frontier
and not the other, the eastern frontier, he was still rushing with all
the strength of his hatred against the detested enemy. Whether that
enemy was defeated here or there made little difference. In either case,
Élisabeth would be free.

"We shall succeed," said Bernard. "You may be sure that Élisabeth will
outwit that swine. Meanwhile, we shall stampede the Huns, make a dash
across Belgium, take Conrad in the rear and capture Èbrecourt. Doesn't
the proposal make you smile? Oh, no, you never smile, do you, when you
demolish a Hun? Not you! You've got a little way of laughing that tells
me all about it. I say to myself, 'There's a bullet gone home,' or
'That's done it: he's got one at the end of his toothpick!' For you've a
way of your own of sticking them. Ah, lieutenant, how fierce we grow!
Simply through practise in killing! And to think that it makes us
laugh!"

Roye, Lassigny, Chaulnes. . . . Later, the Bassée Canal and the River
Lys. . . . And, later and at last, Ypres. Ypres! Here the two lines met,
extended towards the sea. After the French rivers, after the Marne, the
Aisne, the Oise and the Somme, a little Belgian stream was to run red
with young men's blood. The terrible battle of the Yser was beginning.

Bernard, who soon won his sergeant's stripes, and Paul Delroze lived in
this hell until the early days of December. Together with half a dozen
Parisians, a volunteer soldier, a reservist and a Belgian called
Laschen, who had escaped from Roulers and joined the French in order to
get at the enemy more quickly, they formed a little band who seemed
proof against fire. Of the whole section commanded by Paul, only these
remained; and, when the section was re-formed, they continued to group
together. They claimed all the dangerous expeditions. And each time,
when their task was fulfilled, they met again, safe and sound, without a
scratch, as though they brought one another luck.

During the last fortnight, the regiment, which had been pushed to the
extreme point of the front, was flanked by the Belgian lines on the one
side and the British lines on the other. Heroic assaults were delivered.
Furious bayonet charges were made in the mud, even in the water of the
flooded fields; and the Germans fell by the thousand and the ten
thousand.

Bernard was in the seventh heaven:

"Tommy," he said to a little English soldier who was advancing by his
side one day under a hail of shot and who did not understand a single
word of French, "Tommy, no one admires the Belgians more than I do, but
they don't stagger me, for the simple reason that they fight in our
fashion; that is to say, like lions. The fellows who stagger me are you
English beggars. You're different, you know. You have a way of your own
of doing your work . . . and such work! No excitement, no fury. You keep
all that bottled up. Oh, of course, you go mad when you retreat: that's
when you're really terrible! You never gain as much ground as when
you've lost a bit. Result: mashed Boches!"

He paused and then continued:

"I give you my word, Tommy, it fills us with confidence to have you by
our side. Listen and I'll tell you a great secret. France is getting
lots of applause just now; and she deserves it. We are all standing on
our legs, holding our heads high and without boasting. We wear a smile
on our faces and are quite calm, with clean souls and bright eyes. Well,
the reason why we don't flinch, why we have confidence nailed to our
hearts, is that you are with us. It's as I say, Tommy. Look here, do you
know at what precise moment France felt just a little shaking at the pit
of her stomach? During the retreat from Belgium? Not a bit of it! When
Paris was within an ace of being sacked? Not at all. You give it up?
Well, it was on the first day or two. At that time, you see, we knew,
without saying so, without admitting it even to ourselves, that we were
done for. There was no help for it. No time to prepare ourselves. Done
for was what we were. And, though I say it as shouldn't, France behaved
well. She marched straight to death without wincing, with her brightest
smile and as gaily as if she were marching to certain victory. _Ave,
Cæsar, morituri te salutant!_ Die? Why not, since our honor demands it?
Die to save the world? Right you are! And then suddenly London rings us
up on the telephone. 'Hullo! Who are you?' 'It's England speaking.'
'Well?' 'Well, I'm coming in.' 'You don't mean it?' 'I do--with my last
ship, with my last man, with my last shilling.' Then . . . oh, then
there was a sudden change of front! Die? Rather not! No question of that
now! Live, yes, and conquer! We two together will settle fate. From that
day, France did not know a moment's uneasiness. The retreat? A trifle.
Paris captured? A mere accident! One thing alone mattered: the final
result. Fighting against England and France, there's nothing left for
you Huns to do but go down on your knees. Here, Tommy, I'll start with
that one: the big fellow at the foot of the tree. Down on your knees,
you big fellow! . . . Hi! Tommy! Where are you off to? Calling you, are
they? Good-by, Tommy. My love to England!"

It was on the evening of that day, as the 3rd company were skirmishing
near Dixmude, that an incident occurred which struck the two
brothers-in-law as very odd. Paul suddenly felt a violent blow in the
right side, just above the hip. He had no time to bother about it. But,
on retiring to the trenches, he saw that a bullet had passed through the
holster of his revolver and flattened itself against the barrel. Now,
judging from the position which Paul had occupied, the bullet must have
been fired from behind him; that is to say, by a soldier belonging to
his company or to some other company of his regiment. Was it an
accident? A piece of awkwardness?

Two days later, it was Bernard's turn. Luck protected him, too. A bullet
went through his knapsack and grazed his shoulder-blade.

And, four days after that, Paul had his cap shot through: and, this time
again, the bullet came from the French lines.

There was no doubt about it therefore. The two brothers-in-law had
evidently been aimed at; and the traitor, a criminal in the enemy's pay,
was concealed in the French ranks.

"It's as sure as eggs," said Bernard. "You first, then I, then you
again. There's a touch of Hermann about this. The major must be at
Dixmude."

"And perhaps the prince, too," observed Paul.

"Very likely. In any case, one of their agents has slipped in amongst
us. How are we to get at him? Tell the colonel?"

"If you like, Bernard, but don't speak of ourselves and of our private
quarrel with the major. I did think for a moment of going to the
colonel about it, but decided not to, as I did not want to drag in
Élisabeth's name."

There was no occasion, however, for them to warn their superiors. Though
the attempts on the lives of Paul and Bernard were not repeated, there
were fresh instances of treachery every day. French batteries were
located and attacked; their movements were forestalled; and everything
proved that a spying system had been organized on a much more methodical
and active scale than anywhere else. They felt certain of the presence
of Major Hermann, who was evidently one of the chief pivots of the
system.

"He is here," said Bernard, pointing to the German lines. "He is here
because the great game is being played in those marshes and because
there is work for him to do. And also he is here because we are."

"How would he know?" Paul objected.

And Bernard rejoined:

"How could he fail to know?"

One afternoon there was a meeting of the majors and the captains in the
cabin which served as the colonel's quarters. Paul Delroze was summoned
to attend it and was told that the general commanding the division had
ordered the capture of a little house, standing on the left bank of the
canal, which in ordinary times was inhabited by a ferryman. The Germans
had strengthened and were holding it. The fire of their distant
batteries, set up on a height on the other side, defended this
block-house, which had formed the center of the fighting for some days.
It had become necessary to take it.

"For this purpose," said the colonel, "we have called for a hundred
volunteers from the African companies. They will set out to-night and
deliver the assault to-morrow morning. Our business will be to support
them at once and, once the attack has succeeded, to repel the
counter-attacks, which are sure to be extremely violent because of the
importance of the position. You all of you know the position, gentlemen.
It is separated from us by the marshes which our African volunteers will
enter to-night . . . up to their waists, one might say. But to the right
of the marshes, alongside of the canal, runs a tow-path by which we will
be able to come to the rescue. This tow-path has been swept by the guns
on both sides and is free for a great part. Still, half a mile before
the ferryman's house there is an old lighthouse which was occupied by
the Germans until lately and which we have just destroyed with our
gun-fire. Have they evacuated it entirely? Is there a danger of
encountering an advance post there? It would be a good thing if we could
find out; and I thought of you, Delroze."

"Thank you, sir."

"It's not a dangerous job, but it's a delicate one; and it will have to
make certain. I want you to start to-night. If the old lighthouse is
occupied, come back. If not, send for a dozen reliable men and hide
them carefully until we come up. It will make an excellent base."

"Very well, sir."

Paul at once made his arrangements, called together his little band of
Parisians and volunteers who, with the reservist and Laschen the
Belgian, formed his usual command, warned them that he would probably
want them in the course of the night and, at nine o'clock in the
evening, set out, accompanied by Bernard d'Andeville.

The fire from the enemy's guns kept them for a long time on the bank of
the canal, behind a huge, uprooted willow-trunk. Then an impenetrable
darkness gathered round them, so much so that they could not even
distinguish the water of the canal.

They crept rather than walked along, for fear of unexpected flashes of
light. A slight breeze was blowing across the muddy fields and over the
marshes, which quivered with the whispering of the reeds.

"It's pretty dreary here," muttered Bernard.

"Hold your tongue."

"As you please, lieutenant."

Guns kept booming at intervals for no reason, like dogs barking to make
a noise amid the deep, nervous silence; and other guns at once barked
back furiously, as if to make a noise in their turn and to prove that
they were not asleep.

And once more peace reigned. Nothing stirred in space. It was as though
the very grass of the marshes had ceased to wave. And yet Bernard and
Paul seemed to perceive the slow progress of the African volunteers who
had set out at the same time as themselves, their long halts in the
middle of the icy waters, their stubborn efforts.

"Drearier and drearier," sighed Bernard.

"You're very impressionable to-night," said Paul.

"It's the Yser. You know what the men say: 'Yysery, misery!'"

They dropped to the ground suddenly. The enemy was sweeping the path and
the marshes with search-lights. There were two more alarms; and at last
they reached the neighborhood of the old lighthouse without impediment.

It was half-past eleven. With infinite caution they stole in between the
demolished blocks of masonry and soon perceived that the post had been
abandoned. Nevertheless, they discovered, under the broken steps of the
staircase, an open trap-door and a ladder leading to a cellar which
revealed gleams of swords and helmets. But Bernard, who was piercing the
darkness from above with the rays of his electric lamp, declared:

"There's nothing to fear, they're dead. The Huns must have thrown them
in, after the recent bombardment."

"Yes," said Paul. "And we must be prepared for the fact that they may
send for the bodies. Keep guard on the Yser side, Bernard."

"And suppose one of the beggars is still alive?"

"I'll go down and see."

"Turn out their pockets," said Bernard, as he moved away, "and bring us
back their note-books. I love those. They're the best indications of the
state of their souls . . . or rather of their stomachs."

Paul went down. The cellar was a fairly large one. Half-a-dozen bodies
lay spread over the floor, all lifeless and cold. Acting on Bernard's
advice, he turned out the pockets and casually inspected the note-books.
There was nothing interesting to attract his attention. But in the tunic
of the sixth soldier whom he examined, a short, thin man, shot right
through the head, he found a pocket-book bearing the name of Rosenthal
and containing French and Belgian bank-notes and a packet of letters
with Spanish, Dutch and Swiss postage stamps. The letters, all of which
were in German, had been addressed to a German agent residing in France,
whose name did not appear, and sent by him to Private Rosenthal, on
whose body Paul discovered them. This private was to pass them on,
together with a photograph, to a third person, referred to as his
excellency.

"Secret Service," said Paul, looking through them. "Confidential
information. . . . Statistics. . . . What a pack of scoundrels!"

But, on glancing at the pocket-book again, he saw an envelope which he
tore open. Inside was a photograph; and Paul's surprise at the sight of
it was so great that he uttered an exclamation. It represented the woman
whose portrait he had seen in the locked room at Ornequin, the same
woman, with the same lace scarf arranged in the identical way and with
the same expression, whose hardness was not masked by its smile. And was
this woman not the Comtesse Hermine d'Andeville, the mother of Élisabeth
and Bernard?

The print bore the name of a Berlin photographer. On turning it over,
Paul saw something that increased his stupefaction. There were a few
words of writing:

      "_To Stéphane d'Andeville. 1902._"

Stéphane was the Comte d'Andeville's Christian name!

The photograph, therefore, had been sent from Berlin to the father of
Élisabeth and Bernard in 1902, that is to say, four years after the
Comtesse Hermine's death, so that Paul was faced with one of two
solutions: either the photograph, taken before the Comtesse Hermine's
death, was inscribed with the date of the year in which the count had
received it; or else the Comtesse Hermine was still alive.

And, in spite of himself, Paul thought of Major Hermann, whose memory
was suggested to his troubled mind by this portrait, as it had been by
the picture in the locked room. Hermann! Hermine! And here was Hermine's
image discovered by him on the corpse of a German spy, by the banks of
the Yser, where the chief spy, who was certainly Major Hermann, must
even now be prowling.

"Paul! Paul!"

It was his brother-in-law calling him. Paul rose quickly, hid the
photograph, being fully resolved not to speak of it to Bernard, and
climbed the ladder.

"Well, Bernard, what is it?"

"A little troop of Boches. . . . I thought at first that they were a
patrol, relieving the sentries, and that they would keep on the other
side. But they've unmoored a couple of boats and are pulling across the
canal."

"Yes, I can hear them."

"Shall we fire at them?" Bernard suggested.

"No, it would mean giving the alarm. It's better to watch them. Besides,
that's what we're here for."

But at this moment there was a faint whistle from the tow-path. A
similar whistle answered from the boat. Two other signals were exchanged
at regular intervals.

A church clock struck midnight.

"It's an appointment," Paul conjectured. "This is becoming interesting.
Follow me. I noticed a place below where I think we shall be safe
against any surprise."

It was a back-cellar separated from the first by a brick wall containing
a breach through which they easily made their way. They rapidly filled
up the breach with bricks that had fallen from the ceiling and the
walls.

They had hardly finished when a sound of steps was heard overhead and
some words in German reached their ears. The troop of soldiers seemed to
be fairly numerous. Bernard fixed the barrel of his rifle in one of the
loop-holes in their barricade.

"What are you doing?" asked Paul.

"Making ready for them if they come. We can sustain a regular siege
here."

"Don't be a fool, Bernard. Listen. Perhaps we shall be able to catch a
few words."

"You may, perhaps. I don't know a syllable of German. . . ."

A dazzling light suddenly filled the cellar. A soldier came down the
ladder and hung a large electric lamp to a hook in the wall. He was
joined by a dozen men; and the two brothers-in-law at once perceived
that they had come to remove the dead.

It did not take long. In a quarter of an hour's time, there was nothing
left in the cellar but one body, that of Rosenthal, the spy.

And an imperious voice above commanded:

"Stay there, you others, and wait for us. And you, Karl, go down first."

Some one appeared on the top rungs of the ladder. Paul and Bernard were
astounded at seeing a pair of red trousers, followed by a blue tunic and
the full uniform of a French private. The man jumped to the ground and
cried:

"I'm here, _Excellenz_. You can come now."

And they saw Laschen, the Belgian, or rather the self-styled Belgian who
had given his name as Laschen and who belonged to Paul's section. They
now knew where the three shots that had been fired at them came from.
The traitor was there. Under the light they clearly distinguished his
face, the face of a man of forty, with fat, heavy features and
red-rimmed eyes. He seized the uprights of the ladder so as to hold it
steady. An officer climbed down cautiously, wrapped in a wide gray cloak
with upturned collar.

They recognized Major Hermann.



CHAPTER XII

MAJOR HERMANN


Resisting the surge of hatred that might have driven him to perform an
immediate act of vengeance, Paul at once laid his hand on Bernard's arm
to compel him to prudence. But he himself was filled with rage at the
sight of that demon. The man who represented in his eyes every one of
the crimes committed against his father and his wife, that man was
there, in front of his revolver, and Paul must not budge! Nay more,
circumstances had taken such a shape that, to a certainty, the man would
go away in a few minutes, to commit other crimes, and there was no
possibility of calling him to account.

"Good, Karl," said the major, in German, addressing the so-called
Belgian. "Good. You have been punctual. Well, what news is there?"

"First of all, _Excellenz_," replied Karl, who seemed to treat the major
with that deference mingled with familiarity which men show to a
superior who is also their accomplice, "by your leave."

He took off his blue tunic and put on that of one of the dead Germans.
Then, giving the military salute:

"That's better. You see, I'm a good German, _Excellenz_. I don't stick
at any job. But this uniform chokes me.

"Well, _Excellenz_, it's too dangerous a trade, plied in this way. A
peasant's smock is all very well; but a soldier's tunic won't do. Those
beggars know no fear; I am obliged to follow them; and I run the risk of
being killed by a German bullet."

"What about the two brothers-in-law?"

"I fired at them three times from behind and three times I missed them.
Couldn't be helped: they've got the devil's luck; and I should only end
by getting caught. So, as you say, I'm deserting; and I sent the
youngster who runs between me and Rosenthal to make an appointment with
you."

"Rosenthal sent your note on to me at headquarters."

"But there was also a photograph, the one you know of, and a bundle of
letters from your agents in France. I didn't want to have those proofs
found on me if I was discovered."

"Rosenthal was to have brought them to me himself. Unfortunately, he
made a blunder."

"What was that, _Excellenz_?"

"Getting killed by a shell."

"Nonsense!"

"There's his body at your feet."

Karl merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

"The fool!"

"Yes, he never knew how to look after himself," added the major,
completing the funeral oration. "Take his pocketbook from him, Karl. He
used to carry it in an inside pocket of his woolen waistcoat."

The spy stooped and, presently, said:

"It's not there, _Excellenz_."

"Then he put it somewhere else. Look in the other pockets."

Karl did so and said:

"It's not there either."

"What! This is beyond me! Rosenthal never parted with his pocketbook. He
used to keep it to sleep with; he would have kept it to die with."

"Look for yourself, _Excellenz_."

"But then . . . ?"

"Some one must have been here recently and taken the pocketbook."

"Who? Frenchmen?"

The spy rose to his feet, was silent for a moment and then, going up to
the major, said in a deliberate voice:

"Not Frenchmen, _Excellenz_, but a Frenchman."

"What do you mean?"

"_Excellenz_, Delroze started on a reconnaissance not long ago with his
brother-in-law, Bernard d'Andeville. I could not get to know in which
direction, but I know now. He came this way. He must have explored the
ruins of the lighthouse and, seeing some dead lying about, turned out
their pockets."

"That's a bad business," growled the major. "Are you sure?"

"Certain. He must have been here an hour ago at most. Perhaps," added
Karl, with a laugh, "perhaps he's here still, hiding in some hole.
. . ."

Both of them cast a look around them, but mechanically; and the movement
denoted no serious fear on their part. Then the major continued,
pensively:

"After all, that bundle of letters received by our agents, letters
without names or addresses to them, doesn't matter so much. But the
photograph is more important."

"I should think so, _Excellenz_! Why, here's a photograph taken in 1902;
and we've been looking for it, therefore, for the last twelve years. I
manage, after untold efforts, to discover it among the papers which
Comte Stéphane d'Andeville left behind at the outbreak of war. And this
photograph, which you wanted to take back from the Comte d'Andeville, to
whom you had been careless enough to give it, is now in the hands of
Paul Delroze, M. d'Andeville's son-in-law, Élisabeth d'Andeville's
husband and your mortal enemy!"

"Well, I know all that," cried the major, who was obviously annoyed.
"You needn't rub it in!"

"_Excellenz_, one must always look facts in the face. What has been your
constant object with regard to Paul Delroze? To conceal from him the
truth as to your identity and therefore to turn his attention, his
enquiries, his hatred, towards Major Hermann. That's so, is it not? You
went to the length of multiplying the number of daggers engraved with
the letters H, E, R, M and even of signing 'Major Hermann' on the panel
where the famous portrait hung. In fact, you took every precaution, so
that, when you think fit to kill off Major Hermann, Paul Delroze will
believe his enemy to be dead and will cease to think of you. And now
what happens? Why, in that photograph he possesses the most certain
proof of the connection between Major Hermann and the famous portrait
which he saw on the evening of his marriage, that is to say, between the
present and the past."

"True; but this photograph, found on the body of some dead soldier,
would have no importance in his eyes unless he knew where it came from,
for instance, if he could see his father-in-law."

"His father-in-law is fighting with the British army within eight miles
of Paul Delroze."

"Do they know it?"

"No, but an accident may bring them together. Moreover, Bernard and his
father correspond; and Bernard must have told his father what happened
at the Château d'Ornequin, at least in so far as Paul Delroze was able
to piece the incidents together."

"Well, what does that matter, so long as they know nothing of the other
events? And that's the main thing. They could discover all our secrets
through Élisabeth and find out who I am. But they won't look for her,
because they believe her to be dead."

"Are you sure of that, _Excellenz_?"

"What's that?"

The two accomplices were standing close together, looking into each
other's eyes, the major uneasy and irritated, the spy cunning.

"Speak," said the major. "What do you want to say?"

"Just this, _Excellenz_, that just now I was able to put my hand on
Delroze's kit-bag. Not for long: two seconds, that's all; but long
enough to see two things. . . ."

"Hurry up, can't you?"

"First, the loose leaves of that manuscript of which you took care to
burn the more important papers, but of which, unfortunately, you mislaid
a considerable part."

"His wife's diary?"

"Yes."

The major burst into an oath:

"May I be damned for everlasting! One should burn everything in those
cases. Oh, if I hadn't indulged that foolish curiosity! . . . And next?"

"Oh, hardly anything, _Excellenz_! A bit of a shell, yes, a little bit
of a shell; but I must say that it looked to me very like the splinter
which you ordered me to drive into the wall of the lodge, after sticking
some of Élisabeth's hair to it. What do you think of that, _Excellenz_?"

The major stamped his foot with anger and let fly a new string of oaths
and anathemas at the head of Paul Delroze.

"What do you think of that?" repeated the spy.

"You are right," cried the major. "His wife's diary will have given that
cursed Frenchman a glimpse of the truth; and that piece of shell in his
possession is a proof to him that his wife is perhaps still alive, which
is the one thing I wanted to avoid. We shall never get rid of him now!"
His rage seemed to increase. "Oh, Karl, he makes me sick and tired! He
and his street-boy of a brother-in-law, what a pair of swankers! By God,
I did think that you had rid me of them the night when we came back to
their room at the château and found their names written on the wall! And
you can understand that they won't let things rest, now that they know
the girl isn't dead! They will look for her. They will find her. And, as
she knows all our secrets . . . ! You ought to have made away with her,
Karl!"

"And the prince?" chuckled the spy.

"Conrad is an ass! The whole of that family will bring us ill-luck and
first of all to him who was fool enough to fall in love with that hussy.
You ought to have made away with her at once, Karl--I told you--and not
to have waited for the prince's return."

Standing full in the light as he was, Major Hermann displayed the most
appalling highwayman's face imaginable, appalling not because of the
deformity of the features or any particular ugliness, but because of
the most repulsive and savage expression, in which Paul once more
recognized, carried to the very limits of paroxysm, the expression of
the Comtesse Hermine, as revealed in her picture and the photograph. At
the thought of the crime which had failed, Major Hermann seemed to
suffer a thousand deaths, as though the murder had been a condition of
his own life. He ground his teeth. He rolled his bloodshot eyes.

In a distraught voice, clutching the shoulder of his accomplice with his
fingers, he shouted, this time in French:

"Karl, it is beginning to look as though we couldn't touch them, as
though some miracle protected them against us. You've missed them three
times lately. At the Château d'Ornequin you killed two others in their
stead. I also missed him the other day at the little gate in the park.
And it was in the same park, near the same chapel--you remember--sixteen
years ago, when he was only a child, that you drove your knife into him.
. . . Well, you started your blundering on that day."

The spy gave an insolent, cynical laugh:

"What did you expect, _Excellenz_? I was on the threshold of my career
and I had not your experience. Here were a father and a little boy whom
we had never set eyes on ten minutes before and who had done nothing to
us except annoy the Kaiser. My hand shook, I confess. You, on the other
hand: ah, you made neat work of the father, you did! One little touch
of your little hand and the trick was done!"

This time it was Paul who, slowly and carefully, slipped the barrel of
his revolver into one of the breaches. He could no longer doubt, after
Karl's revelations, that the major had killed his father. It was that
creature whom he had seen, dagger in hand, on that tragic evening, that
creature and none other! And the creature's accomplice of to-day was the
accomplice of the earlier occasion, the satellite who had tried to kill
Paul while his father was dying.

Bernard, seeing what Paul did, whispered in his ear:

"So you have made up your mind? We're to shoot him down?"

"Wait till I give the signal," answered Paul. "But don't you fire at
him, aim at the spy."

In spite of everything, he was thinking of the inexplicable mystery of
the bonds connecting Major Hermann with Bernard d'Andeville and his
sister Élisabeth and he could not allow Bernard to be the one to carry
out the act of justice. He himself hesitated, as one hesitates before
performing an action of which one does not realize the full scope. Who
was that scoundrel? What identity was Paul to ascribe to him? To-day,
Major Hermann and chief of the German secret service; yesterday, Prince
Conrad's boon companion, all-powerful at the Château d'Ornequin,
disguising himself as a peasant-woman and prowling through Corvigny;
long before that, an assassin, the Emperor's accomplice . . . and the
lady of Ornequin: which of all these personalities, which were but
different aspects of one and the same being, was the real one?

Paul looked at the major in bewilderment, as he had looked at the
photograph and, in the locked room, at the portrait of Hermine
d'Andeville. Hermann, Hermine! In his mind the two names became merged
into one. And he noticed the daintiness of the hands, white and small as
a woman's hands. The tapering fingers were decked with rings set with
precious stones. The booted feet, too, were delicately formed. The
colorless face showed not a trace of hair. But all this effeminate
appearance was belied by the grating sound of a hoarse voice, by
heaviness of gait and movement and by a sort of barbarous strength.

The major put his hands before his face and reflected for a few minutes.
Karl watched him with a certain air of pity and seemed to be asking
himself whether his master was not beginning to feel some kind of
remorse at the thought of the crimes which he had committed. But the
major threw off his torpor and, in a hardly audible voice, quivering
with nothing but hatred, said:

"On their heads be it, Karl! On their heads be it for trying to get in
our path! I put away the father and I did well. One day it will be the
son's turn. And now . . . now we have the girl to see to."

"Shall I take charge of that, _Excellenz_?"

"No, I have a use for you here and I must stay here myself. Things are
going very badly. But I shall go down there early in January. I shall be
at Èbrecourt on the morning of the tenth of January. The business must
be finished forty-eight hours after. And it shall be finished, that I
swear to you."

He was again silent while the spy laughed loudly. Paul had stooped, so
as to bring his eyes to the level of his revolver. It would be criminal
to hesitate now. To kill the major no longer meant revenging himself and
slaying his father's murderer: it meant preventing a further crime and
saving Élisabeth. He had to act, whatever the consequences of his act
might be. He made up his mind.

"Are you ready?" he whispered to Bernard.

"Yes. I am waiting for you to give the signal."

He took aim coldly, waiting for the propitious moment, and was about to
pull the trigger, when Karl said, in German: "I say, _Excellenz_, do you
know what's being prepared for the ferryman's house?"

"What?"

"An attack, just that. A hundred volunteers from the African companies
are on their way through the marshes now. The assault will be delivered
at dawn. You have only just time to let them know at headquarters and to
find out what precautions they intend to take."

The major simply said:

"They are taken."

"What's that you say, _Excellenz_?"

"I say, that they are taken. I had word from another quarter; and, as
they attach great value to the ferryman's house, I telephoned to the
officer in command of the post that we would send him three hundred men
at five o'clock in the morning. The African volunteers will be caught in
a trap. Not one of them will come back alive."

The major gave a little laugh of satisfaction and turned up the collar
of his cloak as he added:

"Besides, to make doubly sure, I shall go and spend the night there
. . . especially as I am beginning to wonder whether the officer
commanding the post did not chance to send some men here with
instructions to take the papers off Rosenthal, whom he knew to be dead."

"But . . ."

"That'll do. Have Rosenthal seen to and let's be off."

"Am I to go with you, _Excellenz_?"

"No, there's no need. One of the boats will take me up the canal. The
house is not forty minutes from here."

In answer to the spy's call, three soldiers came down and hoisted the
dead man's body to the trap-door overhead. Karl and the major both
remained where they were, at the foot of the ladder, while Karl turned
the light of the lantern, which he had taken down from the wall, towards
the trap-door.

Bernard whispered:

"Shall we fire now?"

"No," said Paul.

"But . . ."

"I forbid you."

When the operation was over, the major said to Karl:

"Give me a good light and see that the ladder doesn't slip."

He went up and disappeared from sight.

"All right," he said. "Hurry."

The spy climbed the ladder in his turn. Their footsteps were heard
overhead. The steps moved in the direction of the canal and there was
not a sound.

"What on earth came over you?" cried Bernard. "We shall never have
another chance like that. The two ruffians would have dropped at the
first shot."

"And we after them," said Paul. "There were twelve of them up there. We
should have been doomed."

"But Élisabeth would have been saved, Paul! Upon my word, I don't
understand you. Fancy having two monsters like that at our mercy and
letting them go! The man who murdered your father and who is torturing
Élisabeth was there; and you think of ourselves!"

"Bernard," said Paul Delroze, "you didn't understand what they said at
the end, in German. The enemy has been warned of the attack and of our
plans against the ferryman's house. In a little while, the hundred
volunteers who are stealing up through the marsh will be the victims of
an ambush laid for them. We've got to save them first. We have no right
to sacrifice our lives before performing that duty. And I am sure that
you agree with me."

"Yes," said Bernard. "But all the same it was a grand opportunity."

"We shall have another and perhaps soon," said Paul, thinking of the
ferryman's house to which Major Hermann was now on his way.

"Well, what do you propose to do?"

"I shall join the detachment of volunteers. If the lieutenant in command
is of my opinion, he will not wait until seven to deliver the assault,
but attack at once. And I shall be of the party."

"And I?"

"Go back to the colonel. Explain the position to him and tell him that
the ferryman's house will be captured this morning and that we shall
hold it until reinforcements come up."

They parted with no more words and Paul plunged resolutely into the
marshes.

The task which he was undertaking did not meet with the obstacles he
expected. After forty minutes of rather difficult progress, he heard the
murmur of voices, gave the password and told the men to take him to the
lieutenant.

Paul's explanations at once convinced that officer: the job must either
be abandoned or hurried on at once.

The column went ahead. At three o'clock, guided by a peasant who knew a
path where the men sank no deeper than their knees, they succeeded in
reaching the neighborhood of the house unperceived. Then, when the alarm
had been given by a sentry, the attack began.

This attack, one of the finest feats of arms in the war, is too well
known to need a detailed description here. It was extremely violent. The
enemy, who was on his guard, made an equally vigorous defense. There was
a tangle of barbed wire to be forced and many pitfalls to be overcome. A
furious hand-to-hand fight took place first outside and then inside the
house; and, by the time that the French had gained the victory after
killing or taking prisoner the eighty-three Germans who defended it,
they themselves had suffered losses which reduced their effective force
by half.

Paul was the first to leap into the trenches, the line of which ran
beside the house on the left and was extended in a semicircle as far as
the Yser. He had an idea: before the attack succeeded and before it was
even certain that it would succeed, he wanted to cut off all retreat on
the part of the fugitives.

Driven back at first, he made for the bank, followed by three
volunteers, stepped into the water, went up the canal and thus came to
the other side of the house, where, as he expected, he found a bridge
of boats.

At that moment, he saw a figure disappearing in the darkness.

"Stay here," he said to his men, "and let no one pass."

He himself jumped out of the water, crossed the bridge and began to run.

A searchlight was thrown on the canal bank and he again perceived the
figure, thirty yards in front of him.

A minute later, he shouted:

"Halt, or I fire!"

And, as the man continued to run, he fired, but aimed so as not to hit
him.

The fugitive stopped and fired his revolver four times, while Paul,
stooping down, flung himself between his legs and brought him to the
ground.

The enemy, seeing that he was mastered, offered no resistance. Paul
rolled his cloak round him and took him by the throat. With the hand
that remained free, he threw the light of his pocket-lamp full on the
other's face.

His instinct had not deceived him: the man he held by the throat was
Major Hermann.



CHAPTER XIII

THE FERRYMAN'S HOUSE


Paul Delroze did not speak a word. Pushing his prisoner in front of him,
after tying the major's wrists behind his back, he returned to the
bridge of boats in the darkness illumined by brief flashes of light.

The fighting continued. But a certain number of the enemy tried to run
away; and, when the volunteers who guarded the bridge received them with
a volley of fire, the Germans thought that they had been cut off; and
this diversion hastened their defeat.

When Paul arrived, the combat was over. But the enemy was bound, sooner
or later, to deliver a counter-attack, supported by the reinforcements
that had been promised to the commandant; and the defense was prepared
forthwith.

The ferryman's house, which had been strongly fortified by the Germans
and surrounded with trenches, consisted of a ground floor and an upper
story of three rooms, now knocked into one. At the back of this large
room, however, was a recess with a sloping roof, reached by three steps,
which at one time had done duty as a servant's attic. Paul, who was
entrusted with the arrangement of this upper floor, brought his prisoner
here. He laid him on the floor, bound him with a cord and fastened him
to a beam; and, while doing so, he was seized with such a paroxysm of
hatred that he took him by the throat as though to strangle him.

He mastered himself, however. After all, there was no hurry. Before
killing the man or handing him over to the soldiers to be shot against
the wall, why deny himself the supreme satisfaction of having an
explanation with him?

When the lieutenant entered, Paul said, so as to be heard by all and
especially by the major:

"I recommend that scoundrel to your care, lieutenant. It's Major
Hermann, one of the chief spies in the German army. I have the proofs on
me. Remember that, in case anything happens to me. And, if we should
have to retreat. . . ."

The lieutenant smiled:

"There's no question of that. We shall not retreat, for the very good
reason that I would rather blow up the shanty first. And Major Hermann,
therefore, would be blown up with us. So make your mind easy."

The two officers discussed the defensive measures to be adopted; and the
men quickly got to work.

First of all, the bridge of boats was unmade, trenches dug along the
canal and the machine-guns turned to face the other way. Paul, on his
first floor, had the sandbags moved from the one side of the house to
the other and the less solid-looking portions of the wall shored up with
beams.

At half-past five, under the rays of the German flashlights, several
shells fell round about. One of them struck the house. The big guns
began to sweep the towpath.

A few minutes before daybreak, a detachment of cyclists arrived by this
path, with Bernard d'Andeville at their head. He explained that two
companies and a section of sappers in advance of a complete battalion
had started, but their progress was hampered by the enemy's shells and
they were obliged to skirt the marshes, under the cover of the dyke
supporting the towpath. This had slowed their march; and it would be an
hour before they could arrive.

"An hour," said the lieutenant. "It will be stiff work. Still, we can do
it. So . . ."

While he was giving new orders and placing the cyclists at their posts,
Paul came up; and he was just going to tell Bernard of Major Hermann's
capture, when his brother-in-law announced his news:

"I say, Paul, dad's with me!"

Paul gave a start:

"Your father is here? Your father came with you?"

"Just so; and in the most natural manner. You must know that he had been
looking for an opportunity for some time. By the way, he has been
promoted to interpreter lieutenant. . . ."

Paul was no longer listening. He merely said to himself:

"M. d'Andeville is here. . . . M. d'Andeville, the Comtesse Hermine's
husband. He must know, surely. Is she alive or dead? Or has he been the
dupe of a scheming woman to the end and does he still bear a loving
recollection of one who has vanished from his life? But no, that's
incredible, because there is that photograph, taken four years later and
sent to him: sent to him from Berlin! So he knows; and then . . . ?"

Paul was greatly perplexed. The revelations made by Karl the spy had
suddenly revealed M. d'Andeville in a startling light. And now
circumstances were bringing M. d'Andeville into Paul's presence, at the
very time when Major Hermann had been captured.

Paul turned towards the attic. The major was lying motionless, with his
face against the wall.

"Your father has remained outside?" Paul asked his brother-in-law.

"Yes, he took the bicycle of a man who was riding near us and who was
slightly wounded. Papa is seeing to him."

"Go and fetch him; and, if the lieutenant doesn't object . . ."

He was interrupted by the bursting of a shrapnel shell the bullets of
which riddled the sandbags heaped up in the front of them. The day was
breaking. They could see an enemy column looming out of the darkness a
mile away at most.

"Ready there!" shouted the lieutenant from below. "Don't fire a shot
till I give the order. No one to show himself!"

It was not until a quarter of an hour later and then only for four or
five minutes that Paul and M. d'Andeville were able to exchange a few
words. Their conversation, moreover, was so greatly hurried that Paul
had no time to decide what attitude he should take up in the presence of
Élisabeth's father. The tragedy of the past, the part which the Comtesse
Hermine's husband played in that tragedy: all this was mingled in his
mind with the defense of the block-house. And, in spite of their great
liking for each other, their greeting was somewhat absent and
distracted.

Paul was ordering a small window to be stopped with a mattress. Bernard
was posted at the other end of the room.

M. d'Andeville said to Paul:

"You're sure of holding out, aren't you?"

"Absolutely, as we've got to."

"Yes, you've got to. I was with the division yesterday, with the English
general to whom I am attached as interpreter, when the attack was
decided on. The position seems to be of essential importance; and it is
indispensable that we should stick to it. I saw that this gave me an
opportunity of seeing you, Paul, as I knew that your regiment was to be
here. So I asked leave to accompany the contingent that had been ordered
to. . . ."

There was a fresh interruption. A shell came through the roof and
shattered the wall on the side opposite to the canal.

"Any one hurt?"

"No, sir."

M. d'Andeville went on:

"The strangest part of it was finding Bernard at your colonel's last
night. You can imagine how glad I was to join the cyclists. It was my
only chance of seeing something of my boy and of shaking you by the
hand. . . . And then I had no news of my poor Élisabeth; and Bernard
told me. . . ."

"Ah," said Paul quickly, "has Bernard told you all that happened at the
château?"

"At least, as much as he knew; but there are a good many things that are
difficult to understand; and Bernard says that you have more precise
details. For instance, why did Élisabeth stay at the château?"

"Because she wanted to," said Paul. "I was not told of her decision
until later, by letter."

"I know. But why didn't you take her with you, Paul?"

"When I left Ornequin, I made all the necessary arrangements for her to
go."

"Good. But you ought not to have left Ornequin without her. All the
trouble is due to that."

M. d'Andeville had been speaking with a certain acerbity, and, as Paul
did not answer, he asked again:

"Why didn't you take Élisabeth away? Bernard said that there was
something very serious, that you spoke of exceptional circumstances.
Perhaps you won't mind explaining."

Paul seemed to suspect a latent hostility in M. d'Andeville; and this
irritated him all the more on the part of a man whose conduct now
appeared to him so perplexing:

"Do you think," he said, "that this is quite the moment?"

"Yes, yes, yes. We may be separated any minute. . . ."

Paul did not allow him to finish. He turned abruptly towards his
father-in-law and exclaimed:

"You are right, sir! It's a horrible idea. It would be terrible if I
were not able to reply to your questions or you to mine. Élisabeth's
fate perhaps depends on the few words which we are about to speak. For
we must know the truth between us. A single word may bring it to light;
and there is no time to be lost. We must speak out now. . . . Whatever
happens."

His excitement surprised M. d'Andeville, who asked:

"Wouldn't it be as well to call Bernard over?"

"No, no," said Paul, "on no account! It's a thing that he mustn't know
about, because it concerns. . . ."

"Because it concerns whom?" asked M. d'Andeville, who was more and more
astonished.

A man standing near them was hit by a bullet and fell. Paul rushed to
his assistance; but the man had been shot through the forehead and was
dead. Two more bullets entered through an opening which was wider than
it need be; and Paul ordered it to be partly closed up.

M. d'Andeville, who had been helping him, pursued the conversation:

"You were saying that Bernard must not hear because it concerns. . . ."

"His mother," Paul replied.

"His mother? What do you mean? His mother? It concerns my wife? I don't
understand. . . ."

Through the loopholes in the wall they could see three enemy columns
advancing, above the flooded fields, moving forward on narrow causeways
which converged towards the canal opposite the ferryman's house.

"We shall fire when they are two hundred yards from the canal," said the
lieutenant commanding the volunteers, who had come to inspect the
defenses. "If only their guns don't knock the shanty about too much!"

"Where are our reinforcements?" asked Paul.

"They'll be here in thirty or forty minutes. Meantime the seventy-fives
are doing good work."

The shells were flying through space in both directions, some falling in
the midst of the German columns, others around the blockhouse. Paul ran
to every side, encouraging and directing the men. From time to time he
went to the attic and looked at Major Hermann, who lay perfectly still.
Then Paul returned to his post.

He did not for a second cease to think of the duty incumbent on him as
an officer and a combatant, nor for a second of what he had to say to M.
d'Andeville. But these two mingled obsessions deprived him of all
lucidity of mind! and he did not know how to come to an explanation with
his father-in-law or how to unravel the tangled position. M. d'Andeville
asked his question several times. He did not reply.

The lieutenant's voice was raised:

"Attention! . . . Present! . . . Fire! . . ."

The command was repeated four times over. The nearest enemy column,
decimated by the bullets, seemed to waver. But the others came up with
it; and it formed up again.

Two German shells burst against the house. The roof was carried away
bodily, several feet of the frontage were demolished and three men
killed.

After the storm, a calm. But Paul had so clear a sense of the danger
which threatened them all that he was unable to contain himself any
longer. Suddenly making up his mind, addressing M. d'Andeville without
further preamble, he said:

"One word in particular. . . . I must know. . . . Are you quite sure
that the Comtesse d'Andeville is dead?" And without waiting for the
reply, he went on: "Yes, you think my question mad. It seems so to you
because you do not know. But I am not mad; and I ask you to answer my
question as you would do if I had the time to state the reasons that
justify me in asking it. Is the Comtesse Hermine dead?"

M. d'Andeville, restraining his feelings and consenting to adopt the
hypothesis which Paul seemed to insist on, said:

"Is there any reason that allows you to presume that my wife is still
alive?"

"There are very serious reasons, I might say, incontestable reasons."

M. d'Andeville shrugged his shoulders and said, in a firm voice:

"My wife died in my arms. My lips touched her icy hands, felt that chill
of death which is so horrible in those we love. I myself dressed her, as
she had asked, in her wedding gown; and I was there when they nailed
down the coffin. Anything else?"

Paul listened to him and thought to himself:

"Has he spoken the truth? Yes, he has; and still how can I admit
. . . ?"

Speaking more imperiously, M. d'Andeville repeated:

"Anything else?"

"Yes," said Paul, "one more question. There was a portrait in the
Comtesse d'Andeville's boudoir: was that her portrait?"

"Certainly, her full length portrait."

"Showing her with a black lace scarf over her shoulders?"

"Yes, the kind of scarf she liked wearing."

"And the scarf was fastened in front by a cameo set in a gold snake?"

"Yes, it was an old cameo which belonged to my mother and which my wife
always wore."

Paul yielded to thoughtless impulse. M. d'Andeville's assertions seemed
to him so many admissions; and, trembling with rage, he rapped out:

"Monsieur, you have not forgotten, have you, that my father was
murdered? We often spoke of it, you and I. He was your friend. Well, the
woman who murdered him and whom I saw, the woman whose image has stamped
itself on my brain wore a black lace scarf round her shoulders and a
cameo set in a gold snake. And I found this woman's portrait in your
wife's room. Yes, I saw her portrait on my wedding evening. Do you
understand now? Do you understand or don't you?"

It was a tragic moment between the two men. M. d'Andeville stood
trembling, with his hands clutching his rifle.

"Why is he trembling?" Paul asked himself; and his suspicions increased
until they became an actual accusation. "Is it a feeling of protest or
his rage at being unmasked that makes him shake like that? And am I to
look upon him as his wife's accomplice? For, after all. . . ."

He felt a fierce grip twisting his arm. M. d'Andeville, gray in the
face, blurted out:

"How dare you? How dare you suggest that my wife murdered your father?
Why, you must be drunk! My wife, a saint in the sight of God and man!
And you dare! Oh, I don't know what keeps me from smashing your face
in!"

Paul released himself roughly. The two men, shaking with a rage which
was increased by the din of the firing and the madness of their quarrel,
were on the verge of coming to blows while the shells and bullets
whistled all around them.

Then a new strip of wall fell to pieces. Paul gave his orders and, at
the same time, thought of Major Hermann lying in his corner, to whom he
could have brought M. d'Andeville like a criminal who is confronted with
his accomplice. But why then did he not do so?

Suddenly remembering the photograph of the Comtesse Hermine which he had
found on Rosenthal's body, he took it from his pocket and thrust it in
front of M. d'Andeville's eyes:

"And this?" he shouted. "Do you know what this is? . . . There's a date
on it, 1902, and you pretend that the Comtesse Hermine is dead! . . .
Answer me, can't you? A photograph taken in Berlin and sent to you by
your wife four years after her death!"

M. d'Andeville staggered. It was as though all his rage had evaporated
and was changing into infinite stupefaction. Paul brandished before his
face the overwhelming proof constituted by that bit of cardboard. And
he heard M. d'Andeville mutter:

"Who can have stolen it from me? It was among my papers in Paris. . . .
Why didn't I tear it up? . . ." Then he added, in a very low whisper,
"Oh, Hermine, Hermine, my adored one!"

Surely it was an avowal? But, if so, what was the meaning of an avowal
expressed in those terms and with that declaration of love for a woman
laden with crime and infamy?

The lieutenant shouted from the ground floor:

"Everybody into the trenches, except ten men. Delroze, keep the best
shots and order independent firing."

The volunteers, headed by Bernard, hurried downstairs. The enemy was
approaching the canal, in spite of the losses which he had sustained. In
fact, on the right and left, knots of pioneers, constantly renewed, were
already striving with might and main to collect the boats stranded on
the bank. The lieutenant in command of the volunteers formed his men
into a first line of defense against the imminent assault, while the
sharpshooters in the house had orders to kill without ceasing under the
storm of shells.

One by one, five of these marksmen fell.

Paul and M. d'Andeville were here, there and everywhere, while
consulting one another as to the commands to be given and the things to
be done. There was not the least chance, in view of their great
inferiority in numbers, that they would be able to resist. But there
was some hope of their holding out until the arrival of the
reinforcements, which would ensure the possession of the blockhouse.

The French artillery, finding it impossible to secure an effective aim
amid the confusion of the combatants, had ceased fire, whereas the
German guns were still bombarding the house; and shells were bursting at
every moment.

Yet another man was wounded. He was carried into the attic and laid
beside Major Hermann, where he died almost immediately.

Outside, there was fighting on and even in the water of the canal, in
the boats and around them. There were hand-to-hand contests amid general
uproar, yells of execration and pain, cries of terror and shouts of
victory. The confusion was so great that Paul and M. d'Andeville found
it difficult to take aim.

Paul said to his father-in-law:

"I'm afraid we may be done for before assistance arrives. I am bound
therefore to warn you that the lieutenant has made his arrangements to
blow up the house. As you are here by accident, without any
authorization that gives you the quality or duties of a combatant.
. . ."

"I am here as a Frenchman," said M. d'Andeville, "and I shall stay on to
the end."

"Then perhaps we shall have time to finish what we have to say, sir.
Listen to me. I will be as brief as I can. But if you should see the
least glimmer of light, please do not hesitate to interrupt me."

He fully understood that there was a gulf of darkness between them and
that, whether guilty or not, whether his wife's accomplice or her dupe,
M. d'Andeville must know things which he, Paul, did not know and that
these things could only be made plain by an adequate recital of what had
happened.

He therefore began to speak. He spoke calmly and deliberately, while M.
d'Andeville listened in silence. And they never ceased firing, quietly
loading, aiming and reloading, as though they were at practise. All
around and above them death pursued its implacable work.

Paul had hardly described his arrival at Ornequin with Élisabeth, their
entrance into the locked room and his dismay at the sight of the
portrait, when an enormous shell exploded over their heads, spattering
them with shrapnel bullets.

The four volunteers were hit. Paul also fell, wounded in the neck; and,
though he suffered no pain, he felt that all his ideas were gradually
fading into a mist without his being able to retain them. He made an
effort, however, and by some miracle of will was still able to exercise
a remnant of energy that allowed him to keep his hold on certain
reflections and impressions. Thus he saw his father-in-law kneeling
beside him and succeeded in saying to him:

"Élisabeth's diary. . . . You'll find it in my kit-bag in camp . . .
with a few pages written by myself . . . which will explain. . . . But
first you must . . . Look, that German officer over there, bound up
. . . he's a spy. . . . Keep an eye on him. . . . Kill him. . . . If
not, on the tenth of January . . . but you will kill him, won't you?"

Paul could speak no more. Besides, he saw that M. d'Andeville was not
kneeling down to listen to him or help him, but that, himself shot, with
his face bathed in blood, he was bending double and finally fell in a
huddled heap, uttering moans that grew fainter and fainter.

A great calm now descended on the big room, while the rifles crackled
outside. The German guns were no longer firing. The enemy's
counter-attack must be meeting with success; and Paul, incapable of
moving, lay awaiting the terrible explosion foretold by the lieutenant.

He pronounced Élisabeth's name time after time. He reflected that no
danger threatened her now, because Major Hermann was also about to die.
Besides, her brother Bernard would know how to defend her. But after a
while this sort of tranquillity disappeared, changed into uneasiness and
then into restless anxiety, giving way to a feeling of which every
second that passed increased the torture. He could not tell whether he
was haunted by a nightmare, by some morbid hallucination. It all
happened on the side of the attic to which he had dragged Major
Hermann. A soldier's dead body was lying between them. And it seemed, to
his horror, as if the major had cut his bonds and were rising to his
feet and looking around him.

Paul exerted all his strength to open his eyes and keep them open. But
an ever thicker shadow veiled them; and through this shadow he
perceived, as one sees a confused sight in the darkness, the major
taking off his cloak, stooping over the body, removing its blue coat and
buttoning it on himself. Then he put the dead man's cap on his head,
fastened his scarf round his neck, took the soldier's rifle, bayonet and
cartridges and, thus transfigured, stepped down the three wooden stairs.

It was a terrible vision. Paul would have been glad to doubt his eyes,
to believe in some phantom image born of his fever and delirium. But
everything confirmed the reality of what he saw; and it meant to him the
most infernal suffering. The major was making his escape!

Paul was too weak to contemplate the position in all its bearings. Was
the major thinking of killing him and of killing M. d'Andeville? Did the
major know that they were there, both of them wounded, within reach of
his hand? Paul never asked himself these questions. One idea alone
obsessed his failing mind. Major Hermann was escaping. Thanks to his
uniform, he would mingle with the volunteers! By the aid of some
signal, he would get back to the Germans! And he would be free! And he
would resume his work of persecution, his deadly work, against
Élisabeth!

Oh, if the explosion had only taken place! If the ferryman's house could
but be blown up and the major with it! . . .

Paul still clung to this hope in his half-conscious condition. Meanwhile
his reason was wavering. His thoughts became more and more confused. And
he swiftly sank into that darkness in which one neither sees nor hears.
. . .

       *       *       *       *       *

Three weeks later the general commanding in chief stepped from his motor
car in front of an old château in the Bourbonnais, now transformed into
a military hospital. The officer in charge was waiting for him at the
door.

"Does Second Lieutenant Delroze know that I am coming to see him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Take me to his room."

Paul Delroze was sitting up. His neck was bandaged; but his features
were calm and showed no traces of fatigue. Much moved by the presence of
the great chief whose energy and coolness had saved France, he rose to
the salute. But the general gave him his hand and exclaimed, in a kind
and affectionate voice:

"Sit down, Lieutenant Delroze. . . . I say lieutenant, for you were
promoted yesterday. No, no thanks. By Jove, we are still your debtors!
So you're up and about?"

"Why, yes, sir. The wound wasn't much."

"So much the better. I'm satisfied with all my officers; but, for all
that, we don't find fellows like you by the dozen. Your colonel has sent
in a special report about you which sets forth such an array of acts of
incomparable bravery that I have half a mind to break my own rule and to
make the report public."

"No, please don't, sir."

"You are right, Delroze. It is the first attribute of heroism that it
likes to remain anonymous; and it is France alone that must have all the
glory for the time being. So I shall be content for the present to
mention you once more in the orders of the day and to hand you the cross
for which you were already recommended."

"I don't know how to thank you, sir."

"In addition, my dear fellow, if there's the least thing you want, I
insist that you should give me this opportunity of doing it for you."

Paul nodded his head and smiled. All this cordial kindness and
attentiveness were putting him at his ease.

"But suppose I want too much, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Very well, sir, I accept. And what I ask is this: first of all, a
fortnight's sick leave, counting from Saturday, the ninth of January,
the day on which I shall be leaving the hospital."

"That's not a favor, that's a right."

"I know, sir. But I must have the right to spend my leave where I
please."

"Very well."

"And more than that: I must have in my pocket a permit written in your
own hand, sir, which will give me every latitude to move about as I wish
in the French lines and to call for any assistance that can be of use to
me."

The general looked at Paul for a moment, and said:

"That's a serious request you're making, Delroze."

"Yes, sir, I know it is. But the thing I want to undertake is serious
too."

"All right, I agree. Anything more?"

"Yes, sir, Sergeant Bernard d'Andeville, my brother-in-law, took part as
I did in the action at the ferryman's house. He was wounded like myself
and brought to the same hospital, from which he will probably be
discharged at the same time. I should like him to have the same leave
and to receive permission to accompany me."

"I agree. Anything more?"

"Bernard's father, Comte Stéphane d'Andeville, second lieutenant
interpreter attached to the British army, was also wounded on that day
by my side. I have learnt that his wound, though serious, is not likely
to prove fatal and that he has been moved to an English hospital, I
don't know which. I would ask you to send for him as soon as he is well
and to keep him on your staff until I come to you and report on the task
which I have taken in hand."

"Very well. Is that all?"

"Very nearly, sir. It only remains for me to thank you for your kindness
by asking you to give me a list of twenty French prisoners, now in
Germany, in whom you take a special interest. Those twenty prisoners
will be free in a fortnight from now at most."

"Eh? What's that?"

For all his coolness, the general seemed a little taken aback. He
echoed:

"Free in a fortnight from now! Twenty prisoners!"

"I give you my promise, sir."

"Don't talk nonsense."

"It shall be as I say."

"Whatever the prisoners' rank? Whatever their social position?"

"Yes, sir."

"And by regular means, means that can be avowed?"

"By means to which there can be no possible objection."

The general looked at Paul again with the eye of a leader who is in the
habit of judging men and reckoning them at their true value. He knew
that the man before him was not a boaster, but a man of action and a
man of his word, who went straight ahead and kept his promises. He
replied:

"Very well, Delroze, you shall have your list to-morrow."



CHAPTER XIV

A MASTERPIECE OF KULTUR


On the morning of Sunday, the tenth of January, Lieutenant Delroze and
Sergeant d'Andeville stepped on to the platform at Corvigny, went to
call on the commandant of the town and then took a carriage in which
they drove to the Château d'Ornequin.

"All the same," said Bernard, stretching out his legs in the fly, "I
never thought that things would turn out as they have done when I was
hit by a splinter of shrapnel between the Yser and the ferryman's house.
What a hot corner it was just then! Believe me or believe me not, Paul,
if our reinforcements hadn't come up, we should have been done for in
another five minutes. We were jolly lucky!"

"We were indeed," said Paul. "I felt that next day, when I woke up in a
French ambulance!"

"What I can't get over, though," Bernard continued, "is the way that
blackguard of a Major Hermann made off. So you took him prisoner? And
then you saw him unfasten his bonds and escape? The cheek of the rascal!
You may be sure he got away safe and sound!"

Paul muttered:

"I haven't a doubt of it; and I don't doubt either that he means to
carry out his threats against Élisabeth."

"Bosh! We have forty-eight hours before us, as he gave his pal Karl the
tenth of January as the date of his arrival and he won't act until two
days later."

"And suppose he acts to-day?" said Paul, in a husky voice.

Notwithstanding his anguish, however, the drive did not seem long to
him. He was at last approaching--and this time really--the object from
which each day of the last four months had removed him to a greater
distance. Ornequin was on the frontier; and Èbrecourt was but a few
minutes from the frontier. He refused to think of the obstacles which
would intervene before he could reach Èbrecourt, discover his wife's
retreat and save her. He was alive. Élisabeth was alive. No obstacles
existed between him and her.

The Château d'Ornequin, or rather what remained of it--for even the
ruins of the château had been subjected to a fresh bombardment in
November--was serving as a cantonment for territorial troops, whose
first line of trenches skirted the frontier. There was not much fighting
on this side, because, for tactical reasons, it was not to the enemy's
advantage to push too far forward. The defenses were of equal strength;
and a very active watch was kept on either side.

These were the particulars which Paul obtained from the territorial
lieutenant with whom he lunched.

"My dear fellow," concluded the officer, after Paul had told him the
object of his journey, "I am altogether at your service; but, if it's a
question of getting from Ornequin to Èbrecourt, you can make up your
mind that you won't do it."

"I shall do it all right."

"It'll have to be through the air then," said the officer, with a laugh.

"No."

"Or underground."

"Perhaps."

"There you're wrong. We wanted ourselves to do some sapping and mining.
It was no use. We're on a deposit of rock in which it's impossible to
dig."

It was Paul's turn to smile:

"My dear chap, if you'll just be kind enough to lend me for one hour
four strong men armed with picks and shovels, I shall be at Èbrecourt
to-night."

"I say! Four men to dig a six-mile tunnel through the rock in an hour!"

"That's ample. Also, you must promise absolute secrecy both as to the
means employed and the rather curious discoveries to which they are
bound to lead. I shall make a report to the general commanding in chief;
but no one else is to know."

"Very well, I'll select my four fellows for you myself. Where am I to
bring them to you?"

"On the terrace, near the donjon."

This terrace commands the Liseron from a height of some hundred and
fifty feet and, in consequence of a loop in the river, is exactly
opposite Corvigny, whose steeple and the neighboring hills are seen in
the distance. Of the castle-keep nothing remains but its enormous base,
which is continued by the foundation-walls, mingled with natural rocks,
which support the terrace. A garden extends its clumps of laurels and
spindle-trees to the parapet.

It was here that Paul went. Time after time he strode up and down the
esplanade, leaning over the river and inspecting the blocks that had
fallen from the keep under the mantle of ivy.

"Now then," said the lieutenant, on arriving with his men. "Is this your
starting-point? I warn you we are standing with our backs to the
frontier."

"Pooh!" replied Paul, in the same jesting tone. "All roads lead to
Berlin!"

He pointed to a circle which he had marked out with stakes, and set the
men to work:

"Go ahead, my lads."

They began to throw up, within a circle of three yards in circumference,
a soil consisting of vegetable mold in which, in twenty minutes' time,
they had dug a hole five feet deep. Here they came upon a layer of
stones cemented together; and their work now became much more difficult,
for the cement was of incredible hardness and they were only to break it
up by inserting their picks into the cracks. Paul followed the
operations with anxious attention.

After an hour, he told them to stop. He himself went down into the hole
and then went on digging, but slowly and as though examining the effect
of every blow that he struck.

"That's it!" he said, drawing himself up.

"What?" asked Bernard.

"The ground on which we are standing is only a floor of the big
buildings that used to adjoin the old keep, buildings which were razed
to the ground centuries ago and on the top of which this garden was laid
out."

"Well?"

"Well, in clearing away the soil, I have broken through the ceiling of
one of the old rooms. Look."

He took a stone, placed it right in the center of the narrower opening
which he himself had made and let it drop. The stone disappeared. A dull
sound followed almost immediately.

"All that need now be done is for the men to widen the entrance. In the
meantime, we will go and fetch a ladder and lights: as much light as
possible."

"We have pine torches," said the officer.

"That will do capitally."

Paul was right. When the ladder was let down and he had descended with
the lieutenant and Bernard, they saw a very large hall, whose vaults
were supported by massive pillars which divided it, like a church of
irregular design, into two main naves, with narrower and lower
side-aisles.

But Paul at once called his companions' attention to the floor of those
two naves:

"A concrete flooring, do you see? . . . And, look there, as I expected,
two rails running along one of the upper galleries! . . . And here are
two more rails in the other gallery! . . ."

"But what does it all mean?" exclaimed Bernard and the lieutenant.

"It means simply this," said Paul, "that we have before us what is
evidently the explanation of the great mystery surrounding the capture
of Corvigny and its two forts."

"How?"

"Corvigny and its two forts were demolished in a few minutes, weren't
they? Where did those gunshots come from, considering that Corvigny is
fifteen miles from the frontier and that not one of the enemy's guns had
crossed the frontier? They came from here, from this underground
fortress."

"Impossible."

"Here are the rails on which they moved the two gigantic pieces which
were responsible for the bombardment."

"I say! You can't bombard from the bottom of a cavern! Where are the
embrasures?"

"The rails will take us there. Show a good light, Bernard. Look, here's
a platform mounted on a pivot. It's a good size, eh? And here's the
other platform."

"But the embrasures?"

"In front of you, Bernard."

"That's a wall."

"It's the wall which, together with the rock of the hill, supports the
terrace above the Liseron, opposite Corvigny. And two circular breaches
were made in the wall and afterwards closed up again. You can see the
traces of the closing quite plainly."

Bernard and the lieutenant could not get over their astonishment:

"Why, it's an enormous work!" said the officer.

"Absolutely colossal!" replied Paul. "But don't be too much surprised,
my dear fellow. It was begun sixteen or seventeen years ago, to my own
knowledge. Besides, as I told you, part of the work was already done,
because we are in the lower rooms of the old Ornequin buildings; and,
having found them, all they had to do was to arrange them according to
the object which they had in view. There is something much more
astounding, though!"

"What is that?"

"The tunnel which they had to build in order to bring their two pieces
here."

"A tunnel?"

"Well, of course! How do you expect they got here? Let's follow the
rails, in the other direction, and we'll soon come to the tunnel."

As he anticipated, the two sets of rails joined a little way back and
they saw the yawning entrance to a tunnel about nine feet wide and the
same height. It dipped under ground, sloping very gently. The walls were
of brick. No damp oozed through the walls; and the ground itself was
perfectly dry.

"Èbrecourt branch-line," said Paul, laughing. "Seven miles in the shade.
And that is how the stronghold of Corvigny was bagged. First, a few
thousand men passed through, who killed off the little Ornequin garrison
and the posts on the frontier and then went on to the town. At the same
time, the two huge guns were brought up, mounted and trained upon sites
located beforehand. When these had done their business, they were
removed and the holes stopped up. All this didn't take two hours."

"But to achieve those two decisive hours the Kaiser worked for seventeen
years, bless him!" said Bernard. "Well, let's make a start."

"Would you like my men to go with you?" suggested the lieutenant.

"No, thank you. It's better that my brother-in-law and I should go by
ourselves. If we find, however, that the enemy has destroyed his tunnel,
we will come back and ask for help. But it will astonish me if he has.
Apart from the fact that he has taken every precaution lest the
existence of the tunnel should be discovered, he is likely to have kept
it intact in case he himself might want to use it again."

And so, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the two brothers-in-law
started on their walk down the imperial tunnel, as Bernard called it.
They were well armed, supplied with provisions and ammunition and
resolved to pursue the adventure to the end.

In a few minutes, that is to say, two hundred yards farther on, the
light of their pocket-lantern showed them the steps of a staircase on
their right.

"First turning," remarked Paul. "I take it there must be at least three
of them."

"Where does the staircase lead to?"

"To the château, obviously. And, if you want to know to what part, I
say, to the room with the portrait. There's no doubt that this is the
way by which Major Hermann entered the château on the evening of the day
when we attacked it. He had his accomplice Karl with him. Seeing our
names written on the wall, they stabbed the two men sleeping in the
room, Private Gériflour and his comrade."

Bernard d'Andeville stopped short:

"Look here, Paul, you've been bewildering me all day. You're acting with
the most extraordinary insight, going straight to the right place at
which to dig, describing all that happened as if you had been there,
knowing everything and foreseeing everything. I never suspected you of
that particular gift. Have you been studying Sherlock Holmes?"

"Not even Arsène Lupin," said Paul, moving on again. "But I've been ill
and I have thought things over. Certain passages in Élisabeth's diary,
in which she spoke of her perplexing discoveries, gave me the first
hint. I began by asking myself why the Germans had taken such pains to
create a desert all around the château. And in this way, putting two and
two together, drawing inference after inference, examining the past and
the present, remembering my meeting with the German Emperor and a
number of things which are all linked together, I ended by coming to the
conclusion that there was bound to be a secret communication between the
German and the French sides of the frontier, terminating at the exact
place from which it was possible to fire on Corvigny. It seemed to me
that, _a priori_, this place must be the terrace; and I became quite
sure of it when, just now, I saw on the terrace a dead tree, overgrown
with ivy, near which Élisabeth thought that she heard sounds coming from
underground. From that moment, I had nothing to do but get to work."

"And your object is . . . ?" asked Bernard.

"I have only one object: to deliver Élisabeth."

"Your plan?"

"I haven't one. Everything will depend on circumstances; but I am
convinced that I am on the right track."

In fact all his surmises were proving to be correct. In ten minutes they
reached a space where another tunnel, also supplied with rails, branched
off to the right.

"Second turning," said Paul. "Corvigny Road. It was down here that the
Germans marched to the town and took our troops by surprise before they
even had time to assemble; it was down here that the peasant-woman went
who accosted you in the evening. The outlet must be at some distance
from the town, perhaps in a farm belonging to the supposed
peasant-woman."

"And the third turning?" said Bernard.

"Here it is."

"Another staircase?"

"Yes; and I have no doubt that it leads to the chapel. We may safely
presume that, on the day when my father was murdered, the Emperor had
come to examine the works which he had ordered and which were being
executed under the supervision of the woman who accompanied him. The
chapel, which at that time was not inside the walls of the park, is
evidently one of the exits from the secret network of roads of which we
are following the main thoroughfare."

Paul saw two more of these ramifications, which, judging from their
position and direction, must issue near the frontier, thus completing a
marvelous system of espionage and invasion.

"It's wonderful," said Bernard. "It's admirable. If this isn't Kultur, I
should like to know what is. One can see that these people have the true
sense of war. The idea of digging for twenty years at a tunnel intended
for the possible bombardment of a tiny fortress would never have
occurred to a Frenchman. It needs a degree of civilization to which we
can't lay claim. Did you ever know such beggars!"

His enthusiasm increased still further when he observed that the roof of
the tunnel was supplied with ventilating-shafts. But at last Paul
enjoined him to keep silent or to speak in a whisper:

"You can imagine that, as they thought fit to preserve their lines of
communication, they must have done something to make them unserviceable
to the French. Èbrecourt is not far off. Perhaps there are
listening-posts, sentries posted at the right places. These people leave
nothing to chance."

One thing that lent weight to Paul's remark was the presence, between
the rails, of those cast-iron slabs which covered the chambers of mines
laid in advance, so that they could be exploded by electricity. The
first was numbered five, the second four; and so on. Paul and Bernard
avoided them carefully; and this delayed their progress, for they no
longer dared switch on their lamps except at brief intervals.

At about seven o'clock they heard or rather they seemed to hear confused
sounds of life and movement on the ground overhead. They felt deeply
moved. The soil above them was German soil; and the echo brought the
sounds of German life.

"It's curious, you know, that the tunnel isn't better watched and that
we have been able to come so far without accident."

"We'll give them a bad mark for that," said Bernard. "Kultur has made a
slip."

Meanwhile a brisker draught blew along the walls. The outside air
entered in cool gusts; and they suddenly saw a distant light through the
darkness. It was stationary. Everything around it seemed still, as
though it were one of those fixed signals which are put up near a
railway.

When they came closer, they perceived that it was the light of an
electric arc-lamp, that it was burning inside a shed standing at the
exit of the tunnel and its rays were cast upon great white cliffs and
upon little mounds of sand and pebbles.

Paul whispered:

"Those are quarries. By placing the entrance to their tunnel there, they
were able to continue their works in time of peace without attracting
attention. You may be sure that those so-called quarries were worked
very discreetly, in a compound to which the workmen were confined."

"What Kultur!" Bernard repeated.

He felt Paul's hand grip his arm. Something had passed in front of the
light, like a shadow rising and falling immediately after.

With infinite caution they crawled up to the shed and raised themselves
until their eyes were on a level with the windows. Inside were half a
dozen soldiers, all lying down, or rather sprawling one across the
other, among empty bottles, dirty plates, greasy paper wrappers and
remnants of broken victuals. They were the men told off to guard the
tunnel; and they were dead-drunk.

"More Kultur," said Bernard.

"We're in luck," said Paul, "and I now understand why the watch is so
ill-kept: this is Sunday."

There was a telegraph-apparatus on a table and a telephone on the wall;
and Paul saw under a glass case a switch-board with five brass handles,
which evidently corresponded by electric wires with the five
mine-chambers in the tunnel.

When they passed on, Bernard and Paul continued to follow the rails
along the bed of a narrow channel, hollowed out of the rock, which led
them to an open space bright with many lights. A whole village lay
before them, consisting of barracks inhabited by soldiers whom they saw
moving to and fro. They went outside it. They then noticed the sound of
a motor-car and the blinding rays of two head-lights; and, after
climbing a fence and passing through a shrubbery, they saw a large villa
lit up from top to bottom.

The car stopped in front of the doorstep, where some footmen were
standing, as well as a guard of soldiers. Two officers and a lady
wrapped in furs alighted. When the car turned, the lights revealed a
large garden, contained within very high walls.

"It is just as I thought," said Paul. "This forms the counterpart of the
Château d'Ornequin. At either end there are strong walls which allow
work to be done unobserved by prying eyes. The terminus is in the open
air here, instead of underground, as it is down there; but at least the
quarries, the work-yards, the barracks, the garrison, the villa
belonging to the staff, the garden, the stables, all this military
organization is surrounded by walls and no doubt guarded on the outside
by sentries. That explains why one is able to move about so freely
inside."

At that moment, a second motor-car set down three officers and then
joined the other in the coach-house.

"There's a dinner-party on," said Bernard.

They resolved to approach as near as they could, under cover of the
thick clumps of shrubs planted along the carriage-drive which surrounded
the house.

They waited for some time; and then, from the sound of voices and
laughter that came from the ground-floor, at the back, they concluded
that this must be the scene of the banquet and that the guests were
sitting down to dinner. There were bursts of song, shouts of applause.
Outside, nothing stirred. The garden was deserted.

"The place seems quiet," said Paul. "I shall ask you to give me a leg up
and to keep hidden yourself."

"You want to climb to the ledge of one of the windows? What about the
shutters?"

"I don't expect they're very close. You can see the light shining
through the middle."

"Well, but why are you doing it? There is no reason to bother about this
house more than any other."

"Yes, there is. You yourself told me that one of the wounded prisoners
said Prince Conrad had taken up his quarters in a villa outside
Èbrecourt. Now this one, standing in the middle of a sort of entrenched
camp and at the entrance to the tunnel, seems to me marked out. . . ."

"Not to mention this really princely dinner-party," said Bernard,
laughing. "You're right. Up you go."

They crossed the walk. With Bernard's assistance, Paul was easily able
to grip the ledge above the basement floor and to hoist himself to the
stone balcony.

"That's it," he said. "Go back to where we were and whistle in case of
danger."

After bestriding the balustrade, he carefully loosened one of the
shutters by passing first his fingers and then his hand through the
intervening space; and he succeeded in unfastening the bolt. The
curtains, being crossed inside, enabled him to move about unseen; but
they were open at the top, leaving an inverted triangle through which he
could see by climbing on to the balustrade.

He did so and then bent forward and looked.

The sight that met his eyes was such and gave him so horrible a blow
that his legs began to shake beneath him. . . .



CHAPTER XV

PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY


A table running parallel with the three windows of the room. An
incredible collection of bottles, decanters and glasses, hardly leaving
room for the dishes of cake and fruit. Ornamental side-dishes flanked by
bottles of champagne. A basket of flowers surrounded by liqueur-bottles.

Twenty persons were seated at table, including half-a-dozen women in
low-necked dresses. The others were officers, covered with gold lace and
orders.

In the middle, facing the window, sat Prince Conrad, presiding over the
banquet, with a lady on his right and another on his left. And it was
the sight of these three, brought together in the most improbable
defiance of the logic of things, that caused Paul to undergo a torture
which was renewed from moment to moment.

That one of the two women should be there, on the prince's right,
sitting stiff-backed in her plum-colored stuff gown, with a black-lace
scarf half-hiding her short hair, was easy to understand. But the other
woman, to whom Prince Conrad kept turning with a clumsy affectation of
gallantry, that woman whom Paul contemplated with horror-struck eyes and
whom he would have liked to strangle where she sat, what was she doing
there? What was Élisabeth doing in the midst of those tipsy officers and
dubious German women, beside Prince Conrad and beside the monstrous
creature who was pursuing her with her hatred?

The Comtesse Hermine d'Andeville! Élisabeth d'Andeville! The mother and
the daughter! There was no plausible argument that would allow Paul to
apply any other description to the prince's two companions. And
something happened to give this description its full value of hideous
reality when, a moment later, Prince Conrad rose to his feet, with a
glass of champagne in his hand, and shouted:

"_Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!_ Here's to the health of our very wideawake friend!"

"_Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!_" shouted the band of guests. "The Comtesse
Hermine!"

She took up a glass, emptied it at a draught and began to make a speech
which Paul could not hear, while the others did their best to listen
with a fervent attention which was all the more meritorious in view of
their copious libations.

And Élisabeth also sat and listened. She was wearing a gray gown which
Paul knew well, quite a simple frock, cut very high in the neck and with
sleeves that came down to her wrists. But from her throat a wonderful
necklace, consisting of four rows of large pearls, hung over her bodice;
and this necklace Paul did not know.

"The wretch! The wretch!" he spluttered.

She was smiling. Yes, he saw on the younger woman's lips a smile
provoked by something that Prince Conrad said as he bent over her. And
the prince gave such a boisterous laugh that the Comtesse Hermine, who
was still speaking, called him to order by tapping him on the hand with
her fan.

The whole scene was a horrible one for Paul; and he suffered such
scorching anguish that his one idea was to get away, to see no more, to
abandon the struggle and to drive this hateful wife of his out of his
life and out of his memory.

"She is a true daughter of the Comtesse Hermine," he thought, in
despair.

He was on the point of going, when a little incident held him back.
Élisabeth raised to her eyes a handkerchief which she held crumpled in
the hollow of her hand and furtively wiped away a tear that was ready to
flow. At the same time he perceived that she was terribly pale, not with
a factitious pallor, which until then he had attributed to the crudeness
of the light, but with a real and deathly pallor. It was as though all
the blood had fled from her poor face. And, after all, what a melancholy
smile was that which had twisted her lips in response to the prince's
jest!

"But then what is she doing here?" Paul asked himself. "Am I not
entitled to regard her as guilty and to suppose that her tears are due
to remorse? She has become cowardly through fear, threats and the wish
to live; and now she is crying."

He continued to insult her in his thoughts; but gradually he felt a
great pity steal over him for the woman who had not had the strength to
endure her intolerable trials.

Meanwhile, the Comtesse Hermine made an end of her speech. She drank
again, swallowing bumper after bumper and each time flinging her glass
behind her. The officers and their women followed her example.
Enthusiastic _Hochs_ were raised from every side; and, in a drunken fit
of patriotism, the prince got on his feet and struck up "_Deutschland
über Alles_," the others joining in the chorus with a sort of frenzy.

Élisabeth had put her elbows on the table and her hands before her face,
as though trying to isolate herself from her surroundings. But the
prince, still standing and bawling, took her two arms and brutally
forced them apart:

"None of your monkey-tricks, pretty one!"

She gave a movement of repulsion which threw him beside himself.

"What's all this? Sulking? And blubbering? A nice thing! And, bless my
soul, what do I see? Madame's glass is full!"

He took the glass and, with a shaky hand, put it to Élisabeth's lips:

"Drink my health, child! The health of your lord and master! What's
this? You refuse? . . . Ah, I see, you don't like champagne! Quite
right! Down with champagne! What you want is hock, good Rhine wine, eh,
baby? You're thinking of one of your country's songs: 'We held it once,
your German Rhine! It babbled in our brimming glass!' Rhine wine,
there!"

With one movement, the officers rose and started shouting:

            _Die Wacht am Rhein_

    "They shall not have our German Rhine,
    Tho' like a flock of hungry crows
    They shriek their lust . . ."

"No, they shan't have it," rejoined the prince, angrily, "but you shall
drink it, little one!"

Another glass had been filled. Once more he tried to force Élisabeth to
lift it to her lips; and, when she pushed it away, he began to whisper
in her ear, while the wine dribbled over her dress.

Everybody was silent, waiting to see what would happen. Élisabeth turned
paler than ever, but did not move. The prince, leaning over her, showed
the face of a brute who alternately threatens, pleads, commands and
insults. It was a heart-rending sight. Paul would have given his life to
see Élisabeth yield to a fit of disgust and stab her insulter. Instead
of that, she threw back her head, closed her eyes and half-swooning,
accepted the chalice and swallowed a few mouthfuls.

The prince gave a shout of triumph as he waved the glass on high; then
he put his lips, avidly, to the place at which she had drunk and emptied
it at a draught.

"_Hoch! Hoch!_" he roared. "Up, comrades! Every one on his chair, with
one foot on the table! Up, conquerors of the world! Sing the strength of
Germany! Sing German gallantry!

    "'The Rhine, the free, the German Rhine
    They shall not have while gallant boys
    Still tell of love to slender maids. . . .'

"Élisabeth, I have drunk Rhine wine from your glass. Élisabeth, I know
what you are thinking. Her thoughts are of love, my comrades! I am the
master! Oh, Parisienne! . . . You dear little Parisienne! . . . It's
Paris we want! . . . Oh, Paris, Paris! . . ."

His foot slipped. The glass fell from his hand and smashed against the
neck of a bottle. He dropped on his knees on the table, amid a crash of
broken plates and glasses, seized a flask of liqueur and rolled to the
floor, stammering:

"We want Paris. . . . Paris and Calais. . . . Papa said so. . . . The
Arc de Triomphe! . . . The Café Anglais! . . . A _cabinet particulier_
at the Café Anglais! . . ."

The uproar suddenly stopped. The Comtesse Hermine's imperious voice was
raised in command:

"Go away, all of you! Go home! And be quick about it, gentlemen, if you
please."

The officers and the ladies soon made themselves scarce. Outside, on the
other side of the house, there was a great deal of whistling. The cars
at once drove up from the garage. A general departure took place.

Meanwhile the Countess had beckoned to the servants and, pointing to
Prince Conrad, said:

"Carry him to his room."

The prince was removed at once. Then the Comtesse Hermine went up to
Élisabeth.

Not five minutes had elapsed since the prince rolled under the table;
and, after the din of the banquet, a great silence reigned in the
disorderly room where the two women were now by themselves. Élisabeth
had once more hidden her head in her hands and was weeping violently
with sobs that shook her shoulders. The Comtesse Hermine sat down beside
her and gently touched her on the arm.

The two women looked at each other without a word. It was a strange
glance that they exchanged, a glance laden with mutual hatred. Paul did
not take his eyes from them. As he watched the two of them, he could not
doubt that they had met before and that the words which they were about
to speak were but the sequel and conclusion of some earlier discussion.
But what discussion? And what did Élisabeth know of the Comtesse
Hermine? Did she accept that woman, for whom she felt such loathing, as
her mother?

Never were two human beings distinguished by a greater difference in
physical appearance and above all by expressions of face denoting more
opposite natures. And yet how powerful was the series of proofs that
linked them together! These were no longer proofs, but rather the
factors of so actual a reality that Paul did not even dream of
discussing them. Besides, M. d'Andeville's confusion when confronted
with the countess' photograph, a photograph taken in Berlin some years
after her pretended death, showed that M. d'Andeville was an accessory
to that pretended death and perhaps an accessory to many other things.

And Paul came back to the question provoked by the agonizing encounter
between the mother and daughter: what did Élisabeth know of it all? What
insight had she been able to obtain into the whole monstrous
conglomeration of shame, infamy, treachery and crime? Was she accusing
her mother? And, feeling herself crushed under the weight of the crimes,
did she hold her responsible for her own lack of courage?

"Yes, of course she does," thought Paul. "But why so much hatred? There
is a hatred between them which only death can quench. And the longing to
kill is perhaps even more violent in the eyes of Élisabeth than in
those of the woman who has come to kill her."

Paul felt this impression so keenly that he really expected one or the
other to take some immediate action; and he began to cast about for a
means of saving Élisabeth. But an utterly unforeseen thing happened. The
Comtesse Hermine took from her pocket one of those large road-maps which
motorists use, placed her finger at one spot, followed the red line of a
road to another spot and, stopping, spoke a few words that seemed to
drive Élisabeth mad with delight.

She seized the countess by the arm and began to talk to her feverishly,
in words interrupted by alternate laughing and sobbing, while the
countess nodded her head and seemed to be saying:

"That's all right. . . . We are agreed. . . . Everything shall be as you
wish. . . ."

Paul thought that Élisabeth was actually going to kiss her enemy's hand,
for she seemed overcome with joy and gratitude; and he was anxiously
wondering into what new trap the poor thing had fallen, when the
countess rose, walked to a door and opened it.

She beckoned to some one outside and then came back again.

A man entered, dressed in uniform. And Paul now understood. The man whom
the Comtesse Hermine was admitting was Karl the spy, her confederate,
the agent of her designs, the man whom she was entrusting with the task
of killing Élisabeth, whose last hour had struck.

Karl bowed. The Comtesse Hermine introduced the man to Élisabeth and
then, pointing to the road and the two places on the map, explained what
was expected of him. He took out his watch and made a gesture as though
to say:

"It shall be done at such-and-such a time."

Thereupon, at the countess' suggestion, Élisabeth left the room.

Although Paul had not caught a single word of what was said, this brief
scene was, for him, pregnant with the plainest and most terrifying
significance. The countess, using her absolute power and taking
advantage of the fact that Prince Conrad was asleep, was proposing a
plan of escape to Élisabeth, doubtless a flight by motor-car, towards a
spot in the neighboring district thought out in advance. Élisabeth was
accepting this unhoped-for deliverance. And the flight would take place
under the management and protection of Karl!

The trap was so well-laid and Élisabeth, driven mad with suffering, was
rushing into it so confidently that the two accomplices, on being left
alone, looked at each other and laughed. The trick was really too easy;
and there was no merit in succeeding under such conditions.

There next took place between them, even before any explanation was
entered into, a short pantomime: two movements, no more; but they were
marked with diabolical cynicism. With his eyes fixed on the countess,
Karl the spy opened his jacket and drew a dagger half-way out of its
sheath. The countess made a sign of disapproval and handed the scoundrel
a little bottle which he took with a shrug of the shoulders, apparently
saying:

"As you please! It's all the same to me!"

Then, sitting side by side, they embarked on a lively conversation, the
countess giving her instructions, while Karl expressed his approval or
his dissent.

Paul had a feeling that, if he did not master his dismay, if he did not
stop the disordered beating of his heart, Élisabeth was lost. To save
her, he must keep his brain absolutely clear and take immediate
resolutions, as circumstances demanded, without giving himself time to
reflect or hesitate. And these resolutions he could only take at a
venture and perhaps erroneously, because he did not really know the
enemy's plans. Nevertheless he cocked his revolver.

He was at that moment presuming that, when Élisabeth was ready to start,
she would return to the room and go away with the spy; but presently the
countess struck a bell on the table and spoke a few words to the servant
who appeared. The man went out. Paul heard two whistles, followed by the
hum of an approaching motor.

Karl looked through the open door and down the passage. Then he turned
to the countess, as though to say:

"Here she is. . . . She's coming down the stairs. . . ."

Paul now understood that Élisabeth would go straight to the car and that
Karl would join her there. If so, it was a case for immediate action.

For a second he remained undecided. Should he take advantage of the fact
that Karl was still there, burst into the room and shoot both him and
the countess dead? It would mean saving Élisabeth, because it was only
those two miscreants who had designs upon her life. But he dreaded the
failure of so daring an attempt and, jumping from the balcony, he called
Bernard.

"Élisabeth is going off in a motor-car. Karl is with her and has been
told to poison her. Get out your revolver and come with me."

"What do you intend to do?"

"We shall see."

They went round the villa, slipping through the bushes that bordered the
drive. The whole place, moreover, was deserted.

"Listen," said Bernard, "there's a car going off."

Paul, at first greatly alarmed, protested:

"No, no, it's only the noise of the engine."

In fact, when they came within sight of the front of the house, they saw
at the foot of the steps a closed car surrounded by a group of some
dozen soldiers. Its head-lamps, while lighting up one part of the
garden, left the spot where Paul and Bernard stood in darkness.

A woman came down the steps and disappeared inside the car.

"Élisabeth," said Paul. "And here comes Karl. . . ."

The spy stopped on the bottom step and gave his orders to the soldier
who acted as chauffeur. Paul caught a syllable here and there.

Their departure was imminent. Another moment and, if Paul raised no
obstacle, the car would carry off the assassin and his victim. It was a
horrible minute, for Paul Delroze felt all the danger attending an
interference which would not even possess the merit of being effective,
since Karl's death would not prevent the Comtesse Hermine from pursuing
her ends.

Bernard whispered:

"Surely you don't mean to carry away Élisabeth? There's a whole picket
of sentries there."

"I mean to do only one thing, to do for Karl."

"And then?"

"Then they'll take us prisoners. We shall be questioned, cross-examined;
there will be a scandal. Prince Conrad will take the matter up."

"And we shall be shot. I confess that your plan . . ."

"Can you propose a better one?"

He broke off. Karl the spy had flown into a rage and was storming at
his chauffeur; and Paul heard him shout:

"You damned ass! You're always doing it! No petrol. . . . Where do you
think we shall find petrol in the middle of the night? There's some in
the garage, is there? Then run and fetch it, you fat-head! . . . And
where's my fur-coat? You've forgotten it? Go and get it at once. I shall
drive the car myself. I've no use for fools like you! . . ."

The soldier started running. And Paul at once observed that he himself
would be able to reach the garage, of which he saw the lights, without
having to leave the protecting darkness.

"Come," he said to Bernard. "I have an idea: you'll see what it is."

With the sound of their footsteps deadened by a grassy lawn, they made
for that part of the out-houses containing the stables and motor-sheds,
which they were able to enter unseen by those without. The soldier was
in a back-room, the door of which was open. From their hiding-place they
saw him take from a peg a great goat-skin coat, which he threw over his
shoulder, and lay hold of four tins of petrol. Thus laden, he left the
back-room and passed in front of Paul and Bernard.

The trick was soon done. Before he had time to cry out, he was knocked
down, rendered motionless and gagged.

"That's that," said Paul. "Now give me his great-coat and his cap. I
would rather have avoided this disguise; but, if you want to be sure of
a thing, you mustn't stick at the means."

"Then you're going to risk it?" asked Bernard. "Suppose Karl doesn't
recognize his chauffeur?"

"He won't even think of looking at him."

"But if he speaks to you?"

"I shan't answer. Besides, once we are outside the grounds, I shall have
nothing to fear from him."

"And what am I to do?"

"You? Bind your prisoner carefully and lock him up in some safe place.
Then go back to the shrubbery beyond the window with the balcony. I hope
to join you there with Élisabeth some time during the middle of the
night; and we shall simply have to go back by the tunnel. If by accident
you don't see me return . . ."

"Well?"

"Well, then go back alone before it gets light."

"But . . ."

Paul was already moving away. He was in the mood in which a man refuses
to consider the actions which he has decided to perform. Moreover, the
event seemed to prove that he was right. Karl received him with abusive
language, but without paying the least attention to this supernumerary
for whom he could not show enough contempt. The spy put on his fur-coat,
sat down at the wheel and began to handle the levers while Paul took
his seat beside him.

The car was starting, when a voice from the doorstep called, in a tone
of command:

"Karl! Stop!"

Paul felt a moment's anxiety. It was the Comtesse Hermine. She went up
to the spy and, lowering her voice, said, in French:

"I want you, Karl, to be sure . . . But your driver doesn't know French,
does he?"

"He hardly knows German, _Excellenz_. He's an idiot. You can speak
freely."

"What I was going to say is, don't use more than ten drops out of the
bottle, else. . . ."

"Very well, _Excellenz_. Anything more?"

"Write to me in a week's time if everything has gone off well. Write to
our Paris address and not before: it would be useless."

"Then you're going back to France, _Excellenz_?"

"Yes, my plan is ripe."

"The same plan?"

"Yes. The weather is in our favor. It has been raining for days and the
staff have told me that they mean to act on their side. So I shall be
there to-morrow evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb
. . ."

"That's it, a touch of the thumb, no more. I've worked at it myself and
everything's ready. But you spoke to me of another plan, to complete the
first; and I confess that that one . . ."

"It's got to be done. Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will
be the end of the run on the black."

"And have you the Kaiser's consent?"

"I didn't ask for it. It's one of those undertakings one doesn't talk
about."

"But this one is terribly dangerous, _Excellenz_."

"Can't be helped."

"Sha'n't you want me over there, _Excellenz_?"

"No. Get rid of the chit for us. That will be enough for the present.
Good-bye."

"Good-bye, _Excellenz_."

The spy released the brakes. The car started.

The drive which ran round the central lawn led to a lodge which stood
beside the garden-gate and which served as a guard-room. The high walls
surrounding the grounds rose on either side of it.

An officer came out of the lodge. Karl gave the pass-word,
"Hohenstaufen." The gate was opened and the motor dashed down a
high-road which first passed through the little town of Èbrecourt and
next wound among low hills.

So Paul Delroze, at an hour before midnight, was alone in the open
country, with Élisabeth and Karl the spy. If he succeeded in mastering
the spy, as he did not doubt that he could, Élisabeth would be free.
There would then remain nothing to do but to return to Prince Conrad's
villa, with the aid of the pass-word, and pick up Bernard there. Once
the adventure was completed in accordance with Paul's designs, the
tunnel would bring back all the three of them to the Château d'Ornequin.

Paul therefore gave way to the delight that was stealing over him.
Élisabeth was with him, under his protection: Élisabeth, whose courage,
no doubt, had yielded under the weight of her trials, but who had a
claim upon his indulgence because her misfortunes were due to his fault.
He forgot, he wished to forget all the ugly phases in the tragedy, in
order to think only of the end that was near at hand, his wife's triumph
and deliverance.

He watched the road attentively, so as not to miss his way when
returning, and planned out his attack, fixing it at the first stop which
they would have to make. He resolved that he would not kill the spy, but
that he would stun him with a blow of his fist and, after knocking him
down and binding him, throw him into some wood by the road-side.

They came to a fair-sized market-town, then two villages and then a town
where they had to stop and show the car's papers. It was past eleven.

Then once more they were driving along country lanes which ran through a
series of little woods whose trees lit up as they passed.

At that moment, the light of the lamps began to fail. Karl slackened
speed. He growled:

"You dolt, can't you even keep your lamps alight? Have you got any
carbide?"

Paul did not reply. Karl went on cursing his luck. Suddenly, he put on
the brakes, with an oath:

"You blasted idiot! One can't go on like this. . . . Here, stir your
stumps and light up."

Paul sprang from his seat, while the car drew up by the road-side. The
time had come to act.

He first attended to the lamps, keeping an eye upon the spy's movements
and taking care to stand outside the rays. Karl got down, opened the
door of the car, and started a conversation which Paul could not hear.
Then he came back to where Paul was:

"Well, pudding-head, haven't you done yet?"

Paul had his back turned to him, attending to his work and waiting for
the propitious moment when the spy, coming two steps nearer, would be
within his reach.

A minute elapsed. He clenched his fists. He foresaw the exact movement
which he would have to make and was on the point of making it, when
suddenly he felt himself seized round the body from behind and brought
to the ground without being able to offer the least resistance.

"Thunder and lightning!" cried the spy, holding him down with his knee.
"So that's why you wouldn't answer? . . . It struck me somehow that you
were behaving queerly. . . . And then I never gave it another thought.
. . . It was the lamp, just now, that threw a light on your side-face.
. . . But who is the fellow I've got hold of? Some dog of a Frenchman,
may be?"

Paul had stiffened his muscles and believed for a moment that he would
succeed in escaping from the other's grip. The enemy's strength was
yielding; Paul gradually seemed to master him; and he exclaimed:

"Yes, a Frenchman, Paul Delroze, the one you used to try and kill, the
husband of Élisabeth, your victim. . . . Yes, it's I; and I know who you
are: you're Laschen, the sham Belgian; you're Karl the spy."

He stopped. The spy, who had only weakened his effort to draw a dagger
from his belt, was now raising it against him:

"Ah, Paul Delroze! . . . God's truth, this'll be a lucky trip! . . .
First the husband and then the wife. . . . Ah, so you came running into
my clutches! . . . Here, take this, my lad! . . ."

Paul saw the gleam of a blade flashing above his face. He closed his
eyes, uttering Élisabeth's name.

Another second; and three shots rang out in rapid succession. Some one
was firing from behind the group formed by the two adversaries.

The spy swore a hideous oath. His grip became relaxed. The weapon in the
hand trembled and he fell flat on the ground, moaning:

"Oh, the cursed woman! . . . That cursed woman! . . . I ought to have
strangled her in the car. . . . I knew this would happen. . . ."

His voice failed him. He stammered:

"I've got it this time. . . . Oh, that cursed woman! . . . And the pain
. . . !"

Then he was silent. A few convulsions, a dying gasp and that was all.

Paul had leapt to his feet. He ran to the woman who had saved his life
and who was still holding her revolver in her hand:

"Élisabeth!" he cried, wild with delight.

But he stopped, with his arms outstretched. In the dark, the woman's
figure did not seem to him to be Élisabeth's, but a taller and broader
figure. He blurted out, in a tone of infinite anguish:

"Élisabeth . . . is it you? . . . Is it really you? . . ."

And at the same time he intuitively knew the answer which he was about
to hear:

"No," said the woman, "Mme. Delroze started a little before us, in
another motor. Karl and I were to join her."

Paul remembered that car, of which he and Bernard had thought that he
heard the sound when going round the villa. As the two starts had taken
place with an interval of a few minutes at most between them, he cried:

"Let us be quick then and lose no time. . . . By putting on speed, we
shall be sure to catch them. . . ."

But the woman at once objected:

"It's impossible, because the two cars have taken different roads."

"What does that matter, if they lead to the same point. Where are they
taking Mme. Delroze?"

"To a castle belonging to the Comtesse Hermine."

"And where is that castle?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? But this is terrible! At least, you know its name.

"No, I don't. Karl never told me."



CHAPTER XVI

THE IMPOSSIBLE STRUGGLE


In the terrible state of distress into which those last words threw him,
Paul felt the need of some immediate action, even as he had done at the
sight of the banquet given by Prince Conrad. Certainly, all hope was
lost. His plan, which was to use the tunnel before the alarm was raised,
his plan was shattered. Granting that he succeeded in finding Élisabeth
and delivering her, a very unlikely contingency, at what moment would
this take place? And how was he afterwards to escape the enemy and
return to France?

No, henceforward space and time were both against him. His defeat was
such that there was nothing for it but to resign himself and await the
final blow.

And yet he did not flinch. He saw that any weakness would be
irreparable. The impulse that had carried him so far must be continued
unchecked and with more vigor than ever.

He walked up to the spy. The woman was stooping over the body and
examining it by the light of one of the lamps which she had taken down.

"He's dead, isn't he?" asked Paul.

"Yes, he's dead. Two bullets hit him in the back." And she murmured, in
a broken voice, "It's horrible, what I've done. I've killed him myself!
But it's not a murder, sir, is it? And I had the right to, hadn't I?
. . . But it's horrible all the same . . . I've killed Karl!"

Her face, which was young and still rather pretty, though common, was
distorted. Her eyes seemed glued to the corpse.

"Who are you?" asked Paul.

She replied, sobbing:

"I was his sweetheart . . . and better than that . . . or rather worse.
He had taken an oath that he would marry me. . . . But Karl's oath! He
was such a liar, sir, such a coward! . . . Oh, the things I know of him!
. . . I myself, simply through holding my tongue, gradually became his
accomplice. He used to frighten me so! I no longer loved him, but I was
afraid of him and obeyed him . . . with such loathing, at the end! . . .
And he knew how I loathed him. He used often to say, 'You are quite
capable of killing me some day or other.' No, sir, I did think of it,
but I should never have had the courage. It was only just now, when I
saw that he was going to stab you . . . and above all when I heard your
name. . . ."

"My name? What has that to do with it?"

"You are Madame Delroze's husband."

"Well?"

"Well, I know her. Not for long, only since to-day. This morning, Karl,
on his way from Belgium, passed through the town where I was and took me
to Prince Conrad's. He told me I was to be lady's maid to a French lady
whom we were going to take to a castle. I knew what that meant. I should
once more have to be his accomplice, to inspire confidence. And then I
saw that French lady, I saw her crying; and she was so gentle and kind
that I felt sorry for her. I promised to rescue her . . . Only, I never
thought that it would be in this way, by killing Karl. . . ."

She drew herself up suddenly and said, in a hard voice:

"But it had to be, sir. It was bound to happen, for I knew too much
about him. It had to be he or I. . . . It was he . . . and I can't help
it and I'm not sorry. . . . He was the wickedest wretch on earth; and,
with people like him, one mustn't hesitate. No, I am not sorry."

Paul asked:

"He was devoted to the Comtesse Hermine, was he not?"

She shuddered and lowered her voice to reply:

"Oh, don't speak of her, please! She is more terrible still; and she is
still alive. Ah, if she should ever suspect!"

"Who is the woman?"

"How can I tell? She comes and goes, she is the mistress wherever she
may be. . . . People obey her as they do the Emperor. Everybody fears
her . . . as they do her brother."

"Her brother?"

"Yes, Major Hermann."

"What's that? Do you mean to say that Major Hermann is her brother?"

"Why, of course! Besides, you have only to look at him. He is the very
image of the Comtesse Hermine!"

"Have you ever seen them together?"

"Upon my word, I can't remember. Why do you ask?"

Time was too precious for Paul to insist. The woman's opinion of the
Comtesse Hermine did not matter much. He asked:

"She is staying at the prince's?"

"For the present, yes. The prince is on the first floor, at the back;
she is on the same floor, but in front."

"If I let her know that Karl has had an accident and that he has sent
me, his chauffeur, to tell her, will she see me?"

"Certainly."

"Does she know Karl's chauffeur, whose place I took?"

"No. He was a soldier whom Karl brought with him from Belgium."

Paul thought for a moment and then said:

"Lend me a hand."

They pushed the body towards the ditch by the road-side, rolled it in
and covered it with dead branches.

"I shall go back to the villa," he said. "You walk on until you come to
the first cluster of houses. Wake the people and tell them the story of
how Karl was murdered by his chauffeur and how you ran away. The time
which it will take to inform the police, to question you and to
telephone to the villa is more than I need."

She took alarm:

"But the Comtesse Hermine?"

"Have no fear there. Granting that I do not deprive her of her power of
doing mischief, how could she suspect you, when the
police-investigations will hold me alone to account for everything?
Besides, we have no choice."

And, without more words, he started the engine, took his seat at the
wheel and, in spite of the woman's frightened entreaties, drove off.

He drove off with the same eagerness and decision as though he were
fulfilling the conditions of some new plan of which he had fixed every
detail beforehand and as though he felt sure of its success.

"I shall see the countess," he said to himself. "She will either be
anxious as to Karl's fate and want me to take her to him at once or she
will see me in one of the rooms in the villa. In either case I shall
find a method of compelling her to reveal the name of the castle in
which Élisabeth is a prisoner. I shall even compel her to give me the
means of delivering her and helping her to escape."

But how vague it all was! The obstacles in the way! The impossibilities!
How could he expect circumstances to be so complaisant as first to blind
the countess' eyes to the facts and next to deprive her of all
assistance? A woman of her stamp was not likely to let herself be taken
in by words or subdued by threats.

No matter, Paul would not entertain the thought of failure. Success lay
at the end of his undertaking; and in order to achieve it more quickly
he increased the pace, rushing his car like a whirlwind along the roads
and hardly slackening speed as he passed through villages and towns.

"Hohenstaufen!" he cried to the sentry posted outside the wall.

The officer of the picket, after questioning him, sent him on to the
sergeant in command of the post at the front-door. The sergeant was the
only one who had free access to the villa; and he would inform the
countess.

"Very well," said Paul. "I'll put up my car first."

In the garage, he turned off his lights; and, as he went towards the
villa, he thought that it might be well, before going back to the
sergeant, to look up Bernard and learn if his brother-in-law had
succeeded in discovering anything.

He found him behind the villa, in the clumps of shrubs facing the window
with the balcony.

"You're by yourself?" said Bernard, anxiously.

"Yes, the job failed. Élisabeth was in an earlier motor."

"What an awful thing!"

"Yes, but it can be put right. And you . . . what about the chauffeur?"

"He's safely hidden away. No one will see him . . . at least not before
the morning, when other chauffeurs come to the garage."

"Very well. Anything else?"

"There was a patrol in the grounds an hour ago. I managed to keep out of
sight."

"And then?"

"Then I made my way as far as the tunnel. The men were beginning to
stir. Besides, there was something that made them jolly well pull
themselves together!"

"What was that?"

"The sudden arrival of a certain person of our acquaintance, the woman I
met at Corvigny, who is so remarkably like Major Hermann."

"Was she going the rounds?"

"No, she was leaving."

"Yes, I know, she means to leave."

"She has left."

"Oh, nonsense! I can't believe that. There was no immediate hurry about
her departure for France."

"I saw her go, though."

"How? By what road?"

"The tunnel, of course! Do you imagine that the tunnel serves no further
purpose? That was the road she took, before my eyes, under the most
comfortable conditions, in an electric trolley driven by a brakesman. No
doubt, since the object of her journey was, as you say, to get to
France, they shunted her on to the Corvigny branch. That was two hours
ago. I heard the trolley come back."

The disappearance of the Comtesse Hermine was a fresh blow to Paul. How
was he now to find, how to deliver Élisabeth? What clue could he trust
in this darkness, in which each of his efforts was ending in disaster?

He pulled himself together, made an act of will and resolved to
persevere in the adventure until he attained his object. He asked
Bernard if he had seen nothing more.

"No, nothing."

"Nobody going or coming in the garden?"

"No. The servants have gone to bed. The lights are out."

"All the lights?"

"All except one, there, over our heads."

The light was on the first floor, at a window situated above the window
through which Paul had watched Prince Conrad's supper-party. He asked:

"Was that light put on while I was up on the balcony?"

"Yes, towards the end."

"From what I was told," Paul muttered, "that must be Prince Conrad's
room. He's drunk and had to be carried upstairs."

"Yes, I saw some shadows at that time; and nothing has moved since."

"He's evidently sleeping off his champagne. Oh, if one could only see,
if one could get into the room!"

"That's easily done," said Bernard.

"How?"

"Through the next room, which must be the dressing-room. They've left
the window open, no doubt to give the prince a little air."

"But I should want a ladder . . ."

"There's one hanging on the wall of the coach-house. Shall I get it for
you?"

"Yes, do," said Paul eagerly. "Be quick."

A whole new scheme was taking shape in his mind, similar in some
respects to his first plan of campaign and likely, he thought, to lead
to a successful issue.

He made certain that the approaches to the villa on either side were
deserted and that none of the soldiers on guard had moved away from the
front-door. Then, when Bernard was back, he placed the ladder in
position and leant it against the wall. They went up.

The open window belonged, as they expected, to the dressing-room and the
light from the bedroom showed through the open door. Not a sound came
from that other room except a loud snoring. Paul put his head through
the doorway.

Prince Conrad was lying fast asleep across his bed, like a loose-jointed
doll, clad in his uniform, the front of which was covered with stains.
He was sleeping so soundly that Paul was able to examine the room at his
ease. There was a sort of little lobby between it and the passage, with
a door at either end. He locked and bolted both doors, so that they were
now alone with Prince Conrad, while it was impossible for them to be
heard from the outside.

"Come on," said Paul, when they had apportioned the work to be done.

And he placed a twisted towel over the prince's face and tried to insert
the ends into his mouth while Bernard bound his wrists and ankles with
some more towels. All this was done in silence. The prince offered no
resistance and uttered not a cry. He had opened his eyes and lay staring
at his aggressors with the air of a man who does not understand what is
happening to him, but is seized with increasing dread as he becomes
aware of his danger.

"Not much pluck about William's son and heir," chuckled Bernard. "Lord,
what a funk he's in! Hi, young-fellow-my-lad, pull yourself together!
Where's your smelling-bottle?"

Paul had at last succeeded in cramming half the towel into his mouth. He
lifted him up and said:

"Now let's be off."

"What do you propose to do?"

"Take him away."

"Where to?"

"To France."

"To France?"

"Well, of course. We've got him; he'll have to help us."

"They won't let him through."

"And the tunnel?"

"Out of the question. They're keeping too close a watch now."

"We shall see."

He took his revolver and pointed it at Prince Conrad:

"Listen to me," he said. "Your head is too muddled, I dare say, to take
in any questions. But a revolver is easy to understand, isn't it? It
talks a very plain language, even to a man who is drunk and shaking all
over with fright. Well, if you don't come with me quietly, if you
attempt to struggle or to make a noise, if my friend and I are in danger
for a single moment, you're done for. You can feel the barrel of my
revolver on your temple: Well, it's there to blow out your brains. Do
you agree to my conditions?"

The prince nodded his head.

"Good," said Paul. "Bernard, undo his legs, but fasten his arms along
his body. . . . That's it. . . . And now let's be off."

The descent of the ladder was easily accomplished and they walked
through the shrubberies to the fence which separated the garden from the
yard containing the barracks. Here they handed the prince across to
each other, like a parcel, and then, taking the same road as when they
came, they reached the quarries.

The night was bright enough to allow them to see their way; and,
moreover, they had in front of them a diffused glow which seemed to rise
from the guard-house at the entrance to the tunnel. And indeed all the
lights there were burning; and the men were standing outside the shed,
drinking coffee.

A soldier was pacing up and down in front of the tunnel, with his rifle
on his shoulder.

"We are two," whispered Bernard. "There are six of them; and, at the
first shot fired, they will be joined by some hundreds of Boches who are
quartered five minutes away. It's a bit of an unequal struggle, what do
you say?"

What increased the difficulty to the point of making it insuperable was
that they were not really two but three and that their prisoner hampered
them most terribly. With him it was impossible to hurry, impossible to
run away. They would have to think of some stratagem to help them.

Slowly, cautiously, stealing along in such a way that not a stone rolled
from under their footsteps or the prince's, they described a circle
around the lighted space which brought them, after an hour, close to the
tunnel, under the rocky slopes against which its first buttresses were
built.

"Stay there," said Paul to Bernard, speaking very low, but just loud
enough for the prince to hear. "Stay where you are and remember my
instructions. First of all, take charge of the prince, with your
revolver in your right hand and with your left hand on his collar. If he
struggles, break his head. That will be a bad business for us, but just
as bad for him. I shall go back to a certain distance from the shed and
draw off the five men on guard. Then the man doing sentry down there
will either join the rest, in which case you go on with the prince, or
else he will obey orders and remain at his post, in which case you fire
at him and wound him . . . and go on with the prince."

"Yes, I shall go on, but the Boches will come after me and catch us up."

"No, they won't."

"If you say so. . . ."

"Very well, that's understood. And you, sir," said Paul to the prince,
"do you understand? Absolute submission; if not, the least carelessness,
a mere mistake may cost you your life."

Bernard whispered in his brother-in-law's ear:

"I've picked up a rope; I shall fasten it round his neck; and, if he
jibs, he'll feel a sharp tug to recall him to the true state of things.
Only, Paul, I warn you that, if he takes it into his head to struggle, I
am incapable of killing him just like that, in cold blood."

"Don't worry. He's too much afraid to struggle. He'll go with you like
a lamb to the other end of the tunnel. When you get there, lock him up
in some corner of the château, but don't tell any one who he is."

"And you, Paul?"

"Never mind about me."

"Still . . ."

"We both stand the same risk. We're going to play a terribly dangerous
game and there's every chance of our losing it. But, if we win, it means
Élisabeth's safety. So we must go for it boldly. Good-bye, Bernard, for
the present. In ten minutes everything will be settled one way or the
other."

They embraced and Paul walked away.

As he had said, this one last effort could succeed only through
promptness and audacity; and it had to be made in the spirit in which a
man makes a desperate move. Ten minutes more would see the end of the
adventure. Ten minutes and he would be either victorious or a dead man.

Every action which he performed from that moment was as orderly and
methodical as if he had had time to think it out carefully and to ensure
its inevitable success, whereas in reality he was forming a series of
separate decisions as he went along and as the tragic circumstances
seemed to call for them.

Taking a roundabout way and keeping to the slopes of the mounds formed
by the sand thrown up in the works, he reached the hollow
communication-road between the quarries and the garrison-camp. On the
last of these rounds, his foot struck a block of stone which gave way
beneath him. On stooping and groping with his hands, he perceived that
this block held quite a heap of sand and pebbles in position behind it.

"That's what I want," he said, without a moment's reflection.

And, giving the stone a mighty kick, he sent the heap shooting into the
road with a roar like an avalanche.

Paul jumped down among the stones, lay flat on his chest and began to
scream for help, as though he had met with an accident.

From where he lay, it was impossible, owing to the winding of the road,
to hear him in the barracks; but the least cry was bound to carry as far
as the shed at the mouth of the tunnel, which was only a hundred yards
away at most. The soldiers on guard came running along at once.

He counted only five of them. In an almost unintelligible voice, he gave
incoherent, gasping replies to the corporal's questions and conveyed the
impression that he had been sent by Prince Conrad to bring back the
Comtesse Hermine.

Paul was quite aware that his stratagem had no chance of succeeding
beyond a very brief space of time; but every minute gained was of
inestimable value, because Bernard would make use of it on his side to
take action against the sixth man, the sentry outside the tunnel, and to
make his escape with Prince Conrad. Perhaps that man would come as
well. Or else perhaps Bernard would get rid of him without using his
revolver and therefore without attracting attention.

And Paul, gradually raising his voice, was spluttering out vague
explanations, which only irritated without enlightening the corporal,
when a shot rang out, followed by two others.

For the moment the corporal hesitated, not knowing for certain where the
sound came from. The men stood away from Paul and listened. Thereupon he
passed through them and walked straight on, without their realizing, in
the darkness, that it was he who was moving away. Then, at the first
turn, he started running and reached the shed in a few strides.

Twenty yards in front of him, at the mouth of the tunnel, he saw Bernard
struggling with Prince Conrad, who was trying to escape. Near them, the
sentry was dragging himself along the ground and moaning.

Paul saw clearly what he had to do. To lend Bernard a hand and with him
attempt to run the risk of flight would have been madness, because their
enemies would inevitably have caught them up and in any case Prince
Conrad would have been set free. No, the essential thing was to stop the
rush of the five other men, whose shadows were already appearing at the
bend in the road, and thus to enable Bernard to get away with the
prince.

Half-hidden behind the shed, he aimed his revolver at them and cried:

"Halt!"

The corporal did not obey and ran on into the belt of light. Paul fired.
The German fell, but only wounded, for he began to command in a savage
tone:

"Forward! Go for him! Forward, can't you, you funks!"

The men did not stir a step. Paul seized a rifle from the stack which
they had made of theirs near the shed and, while taking aim at them, was
able to give a glance backwards and to see that Bernard had at last
mastered Prince Conrad and was leading him well into the tunnel.

"It's only a question of holding out for five minutes," thought Paul,
"so that Bernard may go as far as possible."

And he was so calm at this moment that he could have counted those
minutes by the steady beating of his pulse.

"Forward! Rush at him! Forward!" the corporal kept clamoring, having
doubtless seen the figures of the two fugitives, though without
recognizing Prince Conrad.

Rising to his knees, he fired a revolver-shot at Paul, who replied by
breaking his arm with a bullet. And yet the corporal went on shouting at
the top of his voice:

"Forward! There are two of them making off through the tunnel! Forward!
Here comes help!"

It was half-a-dozen soldiers from the barracks, who had run up at the
sound of the shooting. Paul had now made his way into the shed. He broke
a window-pane and fired three shots. The soldiers made for shelter; but
others arrived, took their orders from the corporal and dispersed; and
Paul saw them scrambling up the adjoining slopes in order to head him
off. He fired his rifle a few more times; but what was the good? All
hope of resistance had long since disappeared.

He persevered, however, killing his adversaries at intervals, firing
incessantly and thus gaining all the time possible. But he saw that the
enemy was maneuvering with the object of first circumventing him and
then making for the tunnel and chasing the fugitives.

Paul set his teeth. He was really aware of each second that passed, of
each of those inappreciable seconds which increased Bernard's distance.

Three men disappeared down the yawning mouth of the tunnel; then a
fourth; then a fifth. Moreover, the bullets were now beginning to rain
upon the shed.

Paul made a calculation:

"Bernard must be six or seven hundred yards away. The three men pursuing
him have gone fifty yards . . . seventy-five yards now. That's all
right."

A serried mass of Germans were coming towards the shed. It was evidently
not believed that Paul was alone, so quickly did he fire. This time
there was nothing for it but to surrender.

"It's time," he thought. "Bernard is outside the danger-zone."

He suddenly rushed at the board containing the handles which
corresponded with the mine-chambers in the tunnel, smashed the glass
with the butt-end of his rifle and pulled down the first handle and the
second.

The earth seemed to shake. A thunderous roar rolled under the tunnel and
spread far and long, like a reverberating echo.

The way was blocked between Bernard d'Andeville and the eager pack that
was trying to catch him. Bernard could take Prince Conrad quietly to
France.

Then Paul walked out of the shed, raising his arms in the air and
crying, in a cheerful voice:

"_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"

Ten men surrounded him in a moment; and the officer who commanded them
shouted, in a frenzy of rage:

"Let him be shot! . . . At once . . . at once! . . . Let him be shot!
. . ."



CHAPTER XVII

THE LAW OF THE CONQUEROR


Brutally handled though he was, Paul offered no resistance; and, while
they were pushing him with needless violence towards a perpendicular
part of the cliff, he continued his inner calculations:

"It is mathematically certain that the two explosions took place at
distances of three hundred and four hundred yards, respectively. I can
therefore also take it as certain that Bernard and Prince Conrad were on
the far side and that the men in pursuit were on this side. So all is
for the best."

Docilely and with a sort of chaffing complacency he submitted to the
preparations for his execution. The twelve soldiers entrusted with it
were already drawn up in line under the bright rays of an electric
search-light and were only waiting for the order. The corporal whom he
had wounded early in the fight dragged himself up to him and snarled:

"Shot! . . . You're going to be shot, you dirty _Franzose_!"

He answered, with a laugh:

"Not a bit of it! Things don't happen as quickly as all that."

"Shot!" repeated the other. "_Herr Leutnant_ said so."

"Well, what's he waiting for, your _Herr Leutnant_?"

The lieutenant was making a rapid investigation at the entrance to the
tunnel. The men who had gone down it came running back, half-asphyxiated
by the fumes of the explosion. As for the sentry, whom Bernard had been
forced to get rid of, he was losing blood so profusely that it was no
use trying to obtain any fresh information from him.

At that moment, news arrived from the barracks, where they had just
learnt, through a courier sent from the villa, that Prince Conrad had
disappeared. The officers were ordered to double the guard and to keep a
good lookout, especially at the approaches.

Of course, Paul had counted on this diversion or some other of the same
kind which would delay his execution. The day was beginning to break and
he had little doubt that, Prince Conrad having been left dead drunk in
his bedroom, one of his servants had been told to keep a watch on him.
Finding the doors locked, the man must have given the alarm. This would
lead to an immediate search.

But what surprised Paul was that no one suspected that the prince had
been carried off through the tunnel. The sentry was lying unconscious
and was unable to speak. The men had not realized that, of the two
fugitives seen at a distance, one was dragging the other along. In
short, it was thought that the prince had been assassinated. His
murderers must have flung his body into some corner of the quarries and
then taken to flight. Two of them had succeeded in escaping. The third
was a prisoner. And nobody for a second entertained the least suspicion
of an enterprise whose audacity simply surpassed imagination.

In any case there could no longer be any question of shooting Paul
without a preliminary inquiry, the results of which must first be
communicated to the highest authorities. He was taken to the villa,
where he was divested of his German overcoat, carefully searched and
lastly was locked up in a bedroom under the protection of four stalwart
soldiers.

He spent several hours in dozing, glad of this rest, which he needed so
badly, and feeling very easy in his mind, because, now that Karl was
dead, the Comtesse Hermine absent and Élisabeth in a place of safety,
there was nothing for him to do but to await the normal course of
events.

At ten o'clock he was visited by a general who endeavored to question
him and who, receiving no satisfactory replies, grew angry, but with a
certain reserve in which Paul observed the sort of respect which people
feel for noted criminals. And he said to himself:

"Everything is going as it should. This visit is only a preliminary to
prepare me for the coming of a more serious ambassador, a sort of
plenipotentiary."

He gathered from the general's words that they were still looking for
the prince's body. They were now in fact looking for it beyond the
immediate precincts, for a new clue, provided by the discovery and the
revelations of the chauffeur whom Paul and Bernard had imprisoned in the
garage, as well as by the departure and return of the motor car, as
reported by the sentries, widened the field of investigation
considerably.

At twelve o'clock Paul was provided with a substantial meal. The
attentions shown to him increased. Beer was served with the lunch and
afterwards coffee.

"I shall perhaps be shot," he thought, "but with due formality and not
before they know exactly who the mysterious person is whom they have the
honor of shooting, not to mention the motives of his enterprise and the
results obtained. Now I alone am able to supply the details.
Consequently . . ."

He so clearly felt the strength of his position and the necessity in
which his enemies stood to contribute to the success of his plan that he
was not surprised at being taken, an hour later, to a small drawing-room
in the villa, before two persons all over gold lace, who first had him
searched once more and then saw that he was fastened up with more
elaborate care than ever.

"It must," he thought, "be at least the imperial chancellor coming all
the way from Berlin to see me . . . unless indeed . . ."

Deep down within himself, in view of the circumstances, he could not
help foreseeing an even more powerful intervention than the
chancellor's; and, when he heard a motor car stop under the windows of
the villa and saw the fluster of the two gold-laced individuals, he was
convinced that his anticipations were being fully confirmed.

Everything was ready. Even before any one appeared, the two individuals
drew themselves up and stood to attention; and the soldiers, stiffer
still, looked like dolls out of a Noah's ark.

The door opened. And a whirlwind entrance took place, amid a jingling of
spurs and saber. The man who arrived in this fashion at once gave an
impression of feverish haste and of imminent departure. What he intended
to do he must accomplish within the space of a few minutes.

At a sign from him, all those present quitted the room.

The Emperor and the French officer were left face to face. And the
Emperor immediately asked, in an angry voice:

"Who are you? What did you come to do? Who are your accomplices? By
whose orders were you acting?"

It was difficult to recognize in him the figure represented by his
photographs and the illustrations in the newspapers, for the face had
aged into a worn and wasted mask, furrowed with wrinkles and disfigured
with yellow blotches.

Paul was quivering with hatred, not so much a personal hatred aroused by
the recollection of his own sufferings as a hatred made up of horror and
contempt for the greatest criminal imaginable. And, despite his absolute
resolve not to depart from the usual formulas and the rules of outward
respect, he answered:

"Let them untie me!"

The Emperor started. It was the first time certainly that any one had
spoken to him like that; and he exclaimed:

"Why, you're forgetting that a word will be enough to have you shot! And
you dare! Conditions! . . ."

Paul remained silent. The Emperor strode up and down, with his hand on
the hilt of his sword, which he dragged along the carpet. Twice he
stopped and looked at Paul; and, when Paul did not move an eyelid, he
resumed his march, with an increasing display of indignation. And, all
of a sudden, he pressed the button of an electric bell:

"Untie him!" he said to the men who hurried into the room.

When released from his bonds, Paul rose up and stood like a soldier in
the presence of his superior officer.

The room was emptied once again. Then the Emperor went up to Paul and,
leaving a table as a barrier between them, asked, still in a harsh
voice:

"Prince Conrad?"

Paul answered:

"Prince Conrad is not dead, sir; he is well."

"Ah!" said the Kaiser, evidently relieved. And, still reluctant to come
to the point, he continued: "That does not affect matters in so far as
you are concerned. Assault . . . espionage . . . not to speak of the
murder of one of my best servants. . . ."

"Karl the spy, sir? I killed him in self-defense."

"But you did kill him? Then for that murder and for the rest you shall
be shot."

"No, sir. Prince Conrad's life is security for mine."

The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:

"If Prince Conrad is alive he will be found."

"No, sir, he will not be found."

"There is not a place in Germany where my searching will fail to find
him," he declared, striking the table with his fist.

"Prince Conrad is not in Germany, sir."

"Eh? What's that? Then where is he?"

"In France."

"In France!"

"Yes, sir, in France, at the Château d'Ornequin, in the custody of my
friends. If I am not back with them by six o'clock to-morrow evening,
Prince Conrad will be handed over to the military authorities."

The Emperor seemed to be choking, so much so that his anger suddenly
collapsed and that he did not even seek to conceal the violence of the
blow. All the humiliation, all the ridicule that would fall upon him and
upon his dynasty and upon the empire if his son were a prisoner, the
loud laughter that would ring through the whole world at the news, the
assurance which the possession of such a hostage would give to the
enemy; all this showed in his anxious look and in the stoop of his
shoulders.

Paul felt the thrill of victory. He held that man as firmly as you hold
under your knee the beaten foe who cries out for mercy; and the balance
of the forces in conflict was so definitely broken in his favor that the
Kaiser's very eyes, raised to Paul's, gave him a sense of his triumph.

The Emperor was able to picture the various phases of the drama enacted
during the previous night: the arrival through the tunnel, the
kidnapping by the way of the tunnel, the exploding of the mines to
ensure the flight of the assailants; and the mad daring of the adventure
staggered him. He murmured:

"Who are you?"

Paul relaxed slightly from his rigid attitude. He placed a quivering
hand upon the table between them and said, in a grave tone:

"Sixteen years ago, sir, in the late afternoon of a September day, you
inspected the works of the tunnel which you were building from Èbrecourt
to Corvigny under the guidance of a person--how shall I describe
her--of a person highly placed in your secret service. At the moment
when you were leaving a little chapel which stands in the Ornequin
woods, you met two Frenchmen, a father and son--you remember, sir? It
was raining--and the meeting was so disagreeable to you that you allowed
a gesture of annoyance to escape you. Ten minutes later, the lady who
accompanied you returned and tried to take one of the Frenchmen, the
father, back with her to German territory, alleging as a pretext that
you wished to speak to him. The Frenchman refused. The woman murdered
him before his son's eyes. His name was Delroze. He was my father."

The Kaiser had listened with increasing astonishment. It seemed to Paul
that his color had become more jaundiced than ever. Nevertheless he kept
his countenance under Paul's gaze. To him the death of that M. Delroze
was one of those minor incidents over which an emperor does not waste
time. Did he so much as remember it?

He therefore declined to enter into the details of a crime which he had
certainly not ordered, though his indulgence for the criminal had made
him a party to it, and he contented himself, after a pause, with
observing:

"The Comtesse Hermine is responsible for her own actions."

"And responsible only to herself," Paul retorted, "seeing that the
police of her country refused to let her be called to account for this
one."

The Emperor shrugged his shoulders, with the air of a man who scorns to
discuss questions of German morality and higher politics. He looked at
his watch, rang the bell, gave notice that he would be ready to leave in
a few minutes and, turning to Paul, said:

"So it was to avenge your father's death that you carried off Prince
Conrad?"

"No, sir, that is a question between the Comtesse Hermine and me; but
with Prince Conrad I have another matter to settle. When Prince Conrad
was staying at the Château d'Ornequin, he pestered with his attentions a
lady living in the house. Finding himself rebuffed by her, he brought
her here, to his villa, as a prisoner. The lady bears my name; and I
came to fetch her."

It was evident from the Emperor's attitude that he knew nothing of the
story and that his son's pranks were a great source of worry to him.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Is the lady here?"

"She was here last night, sir. But the Comtesse Hermine resolved to do
away with her and gave her into the charge of Karl the spy, with
instructions to take her out of Prince Conrad's reach and poison her."

"That's a lie!" cried the Emperor. "A damnable lie!"

"There is the bottle which the Comtesse Hermine handed to Karl the
spy."

"And then? And then?" said the Kaiser, in an angry voice.

"Then, sir, as Karl the spy was dead and as I did not know the place to
which my wife had been taken, I came back here. Prince Conrad was
asleep. With the aid of one of my friends, I brought him down from his
room and sent him into France through the tunnel."

"And I suppose, in return for his liberty, you want the liberty of your
wife?"

"Yes, sir."

"But I don't know where she is!" exclaimed the Emperor.

"She is in a country house belonging to the Comtesse Hermine. Perhaps,
if you would just think, sir . . . a country house a few hours off by
motor car, say, a hundred or a hundred and twenty miles at most."

The Emperor, without speaking, kept tapping the table angrily with the
pommel of his sword. Then he said:

"Is that all you ask?"

"No, sir."

"What? You want something more?"

"Yes, sir, the release of twenty French prisoners whose names appear on
a list given me by the French commander-in-chief."

This time the Emperor sprang to his feet with a bound:

"You're mad! Twenty prisoners! And officers, I expect? Commanders of
army corps? Generals?"

"The list also contains the names of privates, sir."

The Emperor refused to listen. His fury found expression in wild
gestures and incoherent words. His eyes shot terrible glances at Paul.
The idea of taking his orders from that little French subaltern, himself
a captive and yet in a position to lay down the law, must have been
fearfully unpleasant. Instead of punishing his insolent enemy, he had to
argue with him and to bow his head before his outrageous proposals. But
he had no choice. There was no means of escape. He had as his adversary
one whom not even torture would have caused to yield.

And Paul continued:

"Sir, my wife's liberty against Prince Conrad's liberty would really not
be a fair bargain. What do you care, sir, whether my wife is a prisoner
or free? No, it is only reasonable that Prince Conrad's release should
be the object of an exchange which justifies it. And twenty French
prisoners are none too many. . . . Besides, there is no need for this to
be done publicly. The prisoners can come back to France, one by one, if
you prefer, as though in exchange for German prisoners of the same rank
. . . so that . . ."

The irony of these conciliatory words, intended to soften the bitterness
of defeat and to conceal the blow struck at the imperial pride under the
guise of a concession! Paul thoroughly relished those few minutes. He
received the impression that this man, upon whom a comparatively slight
injury to his self-respect inflicted so great a torment, must be
suffering more seriously still at seeing his gigantic scheme come to
nothing under the formidable onslaught of destiny.

"I am nicely revenged," thought Paul to himself. "And this is only the
beginning!"

The capitulation was at hand. The Emperor declared:

"I shall see. . . . I will give orders. . . ."

Paul protested:

"It would be dangerous to wait, sir. Prince Conrad's capture might
become known in France . . ."

"Well," said the Emperor, "bring Prince Conrad back and your wife shall
be restored to you the same day."

But Paul was pitiless. He insisted on being treated with entire
confidence:

"No, sir," he said, "I do not think that things can happen just like
that. My wife is in a most horrible position; and her very life is at
stake. I must ask to be taken to her at once. She and I will be in
France this evening. It is imperative that we should be in France this
evening."

He repeated the words in a very firm tone and added:

"As for the French prisoners, sir, they can be returned under such
conditions as you may be pleased to state. I will give you a list of
their names with the places at which they are interned."

Paul took a pencil and a sheet of paper. When he had finished writing,
the Emperor snatched the list from him and his face immediately became
convulsed. At each name he seemed to shake with impotent rage. He
crumpled the paper into a ball, as though he had resolved to break off
the whole arrangement. But, all of a sudden, abandoning his resistance,
with a hurried movement, as though feverishly determined to have done
with an exasperating business, he rang the bell three times.

An orderly officer entered with a brisk step and brought his heels
together before the Kaiser.

The Emperor reflected a few seconds longer. Then he gave his commands:

"Take Lieutenant Delroze in a motor car to Schloss Hildensheim and bring
him back with his wife to the Èbrecourt outposts. On this day week, meet
him at the same point on our lines. He will be accompanied by Prince
Conrad and you by the twenty French prisoners whose names are on this
list. You will effect the exchange in a discreet manner, which you will
fix upon with Lieutenant Delroze. That will do. Keep me informed by
personal reports."

This was uttered in a jerky, authoritative tone, as though it were a
series of measures which the Emperor had adopted of his own initiative,
without undergoing pressure of any kind and by the mere exercise of his
imperial will.

And, having thus settled the matter, he walked out, carrying his head
high, swaggering with his sword and jingling his spurs.

"One more victory to his credit! What a play-actor!" thought Paul, who
could not help laughing, to the officer's great horror.

He heard the Emperor's motor drive away. The interview had lasted hardly
ten minutes.

A moment later he himself was outside, hastening along the road to
Hildensheim.



CHAPTER XVIII

HILL 132


What a ride it was! And how gay Paul Delroze felt! He was at last
attaining his object; and this time it was not one of those hazardous
enterprises which so often end in cruel disappointment, but the logical
outcome and reward of his efforts. He was beyond the reach of the least
shade of anxiety. There are victories--and his recent victory over the
Emperor was one of them--which involve the disappearance of every
obstacle. Élisabeth was at Hildensheim Castle and he was on his way to
the castle and nothing would stop him.

He seemed to recognize by the daylight features in the landscape which
had been hidden from him by the darkness of the night before: a hamlet
here, a village there, a river which he had skirted. He saw the string
of little road-side woods, and he saw the ditch by which he had fought
with Karl the spy.

It took hardly more than another hour to reach the hill which was topped
by the feudal fortress of Hildensheim. It was surrounded by a wide moat,
spanned by a draw-bridge. A suspicious porter made his appearance, but
a few words from the officer caused the doors to be flung open.

Two footmen hurried down from the castle and, in reply to Paul's
question, said that the French lady was walking near the pond. He asked
the way and said to the officer:

"I shall go alone. We shall start very soon."

It had been raining. A pale winter sun, stealing through the heavy
clouds, lit up the lawns and shrubberies. Paul went along a row of
hot-houses and climbed an artificial rockery whence trickled the thin
stream of a waterfall which formed a large pool set in a frame of dark
fir trees and alive with swans and wild duck.

At the end of the pool was a terrace adorned with statues and stone
benches. And there he saw Élisabeth.

Paul underwent an indescribable emotion. He had not spoken to his wife
since the outbreak of war. Since that day, Élisabeth had suffered the
most horrible trials and had suffered them for the simple reason that
she wished to appear in her husband's eyes as a blameless wife, the
daughter of a blameless mother.

And now he was about to meet her again at a time when none of the
accusations which he had brought against the Comtesse Hermine could be
rebuffed and when Élisabeth herself had roused Paul to such a pitch of
indignation by her presence at Prince Conrad's supper-party! . . .

But how long ago it all seemed! And how little it mattered! Prince
Conrad's blackguardism, the Comtesse Hermine's crimes, the ties of
relationship that might unite the two women, all the struggles which
Paul had passed through, all his anguish, all his rebelliousness, all
his loathing, were but so many insignificant details, now that he saw at
twenty paces from him his unhappy darling whom he loved so well. He no
longer thought of the tears which she had shed and saw nothing but her
wasted figure, shivering in the wintry wind.

He walked towards her. His steps grated on the gravel path; and
Élisabeth turned round.

She did not make a single gesture. He understood, from the expression of
her face, that she did not see him, really, that she looked upon him as
a phantom rising from the mists of dreams and that this phantom must
often float before her deluded eyes.

She even smiled at him a little, such a sad smile that Paul clasped his
hands and was nearly falling on his knees:

"Élisabeth. . . . Élisabeth," he stammered.

Then she drew herself up and put her hand to her heart and turned even
paler than she had been the evening before, seated between Prince Conrad
and Comtesse Hermine. The image was emerging from the realm of mist; the
reality grew plainer before her eyes and in her brain. This time she saw
Paul!

He ran towards her, for she seemed on the point of falling. But she
recovered herself, put out her hands to make him stay where he was and
looked at him with an effort as though she would have penetrated to the
very depths of his soul to read his thoughts.

Paul, trembling with love from head to foot, did not stir. She murmured:

"Ah, I see that you love me . . . that you have never ceased to love me!
. . . I am sure of it now . . ."

She kept her arms outstretched, however, as though against an obstacle,
and he himself did not attempt to come closer. All their life and all
their happiness lay in their eyes; and, while her gaze wildly
encountered his, she went on:

"They told me that you were a prisoner. Is it true, then? Oh, how I have
implored them to take me to you! How low I have stooped! I have even had
to sit down to table with them and laugh at their jokes and wear jewels
and pearl necklaces which he has forced upon me. All this in order to
see you! . . . And they kept on promising. And then, at length, they
brought me here last night and I thought that they had tricked me once
more . . . or else that it was a fresh trap . . . or that they had at
last made up their minds to kill me. . . . And now here you are, here
you are, Paul, my own darling! . . ."

She took his face in her two hands and, suddenly, in a voice of despair:

"But you are not going just yet? You will stay till to-morrow, surely?
They can't take you from me like that, after a few minutes? You're
staying, are you not? Oh, Paul, all my courage is gone . . . don't leave
me! . . ."

She was greatly surprised to see him smile:

"What's the matter? Why, my dearest, how happy you look!"

He began to laugh and this time, drawing her to him with a masterful air
that admitted of no denial, he kissed her hair and her forehead and her
cheeks and her lips; and he said:

"I am laughing because there is nothing to do but to laugh and kiss you.
I am laughing also because I have been imagining so many silly things.
Yes, just think, at that supper last night, I saw you from a distance
. . . and I suffered agonies: I accused you of I don't know what. . . .
Oh, what a fool I was!"

She could not understand his gaiety; and she said again:

"How happy you are! How can you be so happy?"

"There is no reason why I should not be," said Paul, still laughing.

"Come, look at things as they are: you and I are meeting after
unheard-of misfortunes. We are together; nothing can separate us; and
you wouldn't have me be glad?"

"Do you mean to say that nothing can separate us?" she asked, in a voice
quivering with anxiety.

"Why, of course! Is that so strange?"

"You are staying with me? Are we to live here?"

"No, not that! What an idea! You're going to pack up your things at
express speed and we shall be off."

"Where to?"

"Where to? To France, of course. When you think of it, that's the only
country where one's really comfortable."

And, when she stared at him in amazement, he said:

"Come, let's hurry. The car's waiting; and I promised Bernard--yes, your
brother Bernard--that we should be with him to-night. . . . Are you
ready? But why that astounded look? Do you want to have things explained
to you? But, my very dearest, it will take hours and hours to explain
everything that's happened to yourself and me. You've turned the head of
an imperial prince . . . and then you were shot . . . and then . . . and
then . . . Oh, what does it all matter? Must I force you to come away
with me?"

All at once she understood that he was speaking seriously; and, without
taking her eyes from him, she asked:

"Is it true? Are we free?"

"Absolutely free."

"We're going back to France?"

"Immediately."

"We have nothing more to fear?"

"Nothing."

The tension from which she was suffering suddenly relaxed. She in her
turn began to laugh, yielding to one of those fits of uncontrollable
mirth which find vent in every sort of childish nonsense. She could have
sung, she could have danced for sheer joy. And yet the tears flowed down
her cheeks. And she stammered:

"Free! . . . it's all over! . . . Have I been through much? . . . Not at
all! . . . Oh, you know that I had been shot? Well, I assure you, it
wasn't so bad as all that. . . . I will tell you about it and lots of
other things. . . . And you must tell me, too. . . . But how did you
manage? You must be cleverer than the cleverest, cleverer than the
unspeakable Conrad, cleverer than the Emperor! Oh, dear, how funny it
is, how funny! . . ."

She broke off and, seizing him forcibly by the arm, said:

"Let us go, darling. It's madness to remain another second. These people
are capable of anything. They look upon no promise as binding. They are
scoundrels, criminals. Let's go. . . . Let's go. . . ."

They went away.

Their journey was uneventful. In the evening, they reached the lines on
the front, facing Èbrecourt.

The officer on duty, who had full powers, had a reflector lit and
himself, after ordering a white flag to be displayed, took Élisabeth and
Paul to the French officer who came forward.

The officer telephoned to the rear. A motor car was sent; and, at nine
o'clock, Paul and Élisabeth pulled up at the gates of Ornequin and Paul
asked to have Bernard sent for. He met him half-way:

"Is that you, Bernard?" he said. "Listen to me and don't let us waste a
minute. I have brought back Élisabeth. Yes, she's here, in the car. We
are off to Corvigny and you're coming with us. While I go for my bag and
yours, you give instructions to have Prince Conrad closely watched. He's
safe, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Then hurry. I want to get at the woman whom you saw last night as she
was entering the tunnel. Now that she's in France, we'll hunt her down."

"Don't you think, Paul, that we should be more likely to find her tracks
by ourselves going back into the tunnel and searching the place where it
opens at Corvigny?"

"We can't afford the time. We have arrived at a phase of the struggle
that demands the utmost haste."

"But, Paul, the struggle is over, now that Élisabeth is saved."

"The struggle will never be over as long as that woman lives."

"Well, but who is she?"

Paul did not answer.

At ten o'clock they all three alighted outside the station at Corvigny.
There were no more trains. Everybody was asleep. Paul refused to be put
off, went to the military guard, woke up the adjutant, sent for the
station-master, sent for the booking-clerk and, after a minute inquiry,
succeeded in establishing the fact that on that same Monday morning a
woman supplied with a pass in the name of Mme. Antonin had taken a
ticket for Château-Thierry. She was the only woman traveling alone. She
was wearing a Red Cross uniform. Her description corresponded at all
points with that of the Comtesse Hermine.

"It's certainly she," said Paul, when they had taken their rooms for the
night at the hotel near the station. "There's no doubt about it. It's
the only way she could go from Corvigny. And it's the way that we shall
go to-morrow morning, at the same time that she did. I hope that she
will not have time to carry out the scheme that has brought her to
France. In any case, this is a great opportunity; and we must make the
most of it."

"But who is the woman?" Bernard asked again.

"Who is she? Ask Élisabeth to tell you. We have an hour left in which to
discuss certain details and then we must go to bed. We need rest, all
three of us."

They started on the Tuesday morning. Paul's confidence was unshaken.
Though he knew nothing of the Comtesse Hermine's intentions, he felt
sure that he was on the right road. And, in fact, they were told several
times that a Red Cross nurse, traveling first-class and alone, had
passed through the same stations on the day before.

They got out at Château-Thierry late in the afternoon. Paul made his
inquiries. On the previous evening, the nurse had driven away in a Red
Cross motor car which was waiting at the station. This car, according to
the papers carried by the driver, belonged to one of the ambulances
working to the rear of Soissons; but the exact position of the ambulance
was not known.

This was near enough for Paul, however. Soissons was in the battle line.

"Let's go to Soissons," he said.

The order signed by the commander-in-chief which he had on him gave him
full power to requisition a motor car and to enter the fighting zone.
They reached Soissons at dinner-time.

The outskirts, ruined by the bombardment, were deserted. The town itself
seemed abandoned for the greater part. But as they came nearer to the
center a certain animation prevailed in the streets. Companies of
soldiers passed at a quick pace. Guns and ammunition wagons trotted by.
In the hotel to which they went on the Grande Place, a hotel containing
a number of officers, there was general excitement, with much coming and
going and even a little disorder.

Paul and Bernard asked the reason. They were told that, for some days
past, we had been successfully attacking the slopes opposite Soissons,
on the other side of the Aisne. Two days before, some battalions of
light infantry and African troops had taken Hill 132 by assault. On the
following day, we held the positions which we had won and carried the
trenches on the Dent de Crouy. Then, in the course of the Monday night
at a time when the enemy was delivering a violent counter-attack, a
curious thing happened. The Aisne, which was swollen as the result of
the heavy rains, overflowed its banks and carried away all the bridges
at Villeneuve and Soissons.

The rise of the Aisne was natural enough; but, high though the river
was, it did not explain the destruction of the bridges; and this
destruction, coinciding with the German counter-attack and apparently
due to suspect reasons which had not yet been cleared up, had
complicated the position of the French troops by making the dispatch of
reinforcements almost impossible. Our men had held the hill all day, but
with difficulty and with great losses. At this moment, a part of the
artillery was being moved back to the right bank of the Aisne.

Paul and Bernard did not hesitate in their minds for a second. In all
this they recognized the Comtesse Hermine's handiwork. The destruction
of the bridges, the German attacks, those two incidents which happened
on the very night of her arrival were, beyond a doubt, the outcome of a
plan conceived by her, the execution of which had been prepared for the
time when the rains were bound to swell the river and proved the
collaboration existing between the countess and the enemy's staff.

Besides, Paul remembered the sentences which she had exchanged with Karl
the spy outside the door of Prince Conrad's villa:

"I am going to France . . . everything is ready. The weather is in our
favor; and the staff have told me. . . . So I shall be there to-morrow
evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb. . . ."

She had given that touch of the thumb. All the bridges had been tampered
with by Karl or by men in his pay and had now broken down.

"It's she, obviously enough," said Bernard. "And, if it is, why look so
anxious? You ought to be glad, on the contrary, because we are now
positively certain of laying hold of her."

"Yes, but shall we do so in time? When she spoke to Karl, she uttered
another threat which struck me as much more serious. As I told you, she
said, 'Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will be the end of
the run on the black.' And, when the spy asked her if she had the
Emperor's consent, she answered that it was unnecessary and that this
was one of the undertakings which one doesn't talk about. You
understand, Bernard, it's not a question of the German attack or the
destruction of the bridges: that is honest warfare and the Emperor knows
all about it. No, it's a question of something different, which is
intended to coincide with other events and give them their full
significance. The woman can't think that an advance of half a mile or a
mile is an incident capable of ending what she calls the run on the
black. Then what is at the back of it all? I don't know; and that
accounts for my anxiety."

Paul spent the whole of that evening and the whole of the next day,
Wednesday the 13th, in making prolonged searches in the streets of the
town or along the banks of the Aisne. He had placed himself in
communication with the military authorities. Officers and men took part
in his investigations. They went over several houses and questioned a
number of the inhabitants.

Bernard offered to go with him; but Paul persisted in refusing:

"No. It is true, the woman doesn't know you; but she must not see your
sister. I am asking you therefore to stay with Élisabeth, to keep her
from going out and to watch over her without a moment's intermission,
for we have to do with the most terrible enemy imaginable."

The brother and sister therefore passed the long hours of that day with
their faces glued to the window-panes. Paul came back at intervals to
snatch a meal. He was quivering with hope.

"She's here," he said. "She must have left those who were with her in
the motor car, dropped her nurse's disguise and is now hiding in some
hole, like a spider behind its web. I can see her, telephone in hand,
giving her orders to a whole band of people, who have taken to earth
like herself and made themselves invisible like her. But I am beginning
to perceive her plan and I have one advantage over her, which is that
she believes herself in safety. She does not know that her accomplice,
Karl, is dead. She does not know of Élisabeth's release. She does not
know of our presence here. I've got her, the loathsome beast, I've got
her."

The news of the battle, meanwhile, was not improving. The retreating
movement on the left bank continued. At Crouy, the severity of their
losses and the depth of the mud stopped the rush of the Moroccan troops.
A hurriedly-constructed pontoon bridge went drifting down-stream.

When Paul made his next appearance, at six o'clock in the evening, there
were a few drops of blood on his sleeve. Élisabeth took alarm.

"It's nothing," he said, with a laugh. "A scratch; I don't know how I
got it."

"But your hand; look at your hand. You're bleeding!"

"No, it's not my blood. Don't be frightened. Everything's all right."

Bernard said:

"You know the commander-in-chief came to Soissons this morning."

"Yes, so it seems. All the better. I should like to make him a present
of the spy and her gang. It would be a handsome gift."

He went away for another hour and then came back and had dinner.

"You look as though you were sure of things now," said Bernard.

"One can never be sure of anything. That woman is the very devil."

"But you know where she's hiding?"

"Yes."

"And what are you waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for nine o'clock. I shall take a rest till then. Wake me up
at a little before nine."

The guns never ceased booming in the distant darkness. Sometimes a shell
would fall on the town with a great crash. Troops passed in every
direction. Then there would be brief intervals of silence, in which the
sounds of war seemed to hang in suspense; and it was those minutes which
perhaps were most formidable and significant.

Paul woke of himself. He said to his wife and Bernard:

"You know, you're coming, too. It will be rough work, Élisabeth, very
rough work. Are you certain that you're equal to it?"

"Oh, Paul . . . But you yourself are looking so pale."

"Yes," he said, "it's the excitement. Not because of what is going to
happen. But, in spite of all my precautions, I shall be afraid until the
last moment that the adversary will escape. A single act of
carelessness, a stroke of ill-luck that gives the alarm . . . and I
shall have to begin all over again. . . . Never mind about your
revolver, Bernard."

"What!" cried Bernard. "Isn't there going to be any fighting in this
expedition of yours?"

Paul did not reply. According to his custom, he expressed himself during
or after action. Bernard took his revolver.

The last stroke of nine sounded as they crossed the Grande Place, amid a
darkness stabbed here and there by a thin ray of light issuing from a
closed shop. A group of soldiers were massed in the forecourt of the
cathedral, whose shadowy bulk they felt looming overhead.

Paul flashed the light from an electric lamp upon them and asked the one
in command:

"Any news, sergeant?"

"No, sir. No one has entered the house and no one has gone out."

The sergeant gave a low whistle. In the middle of the street, two men
emerged from the surrounding gloom and approached the group.

"Any sound in the house?"

"No, sergeant."

"Any light behind the shutters?"

"No, sergeant."

Then Paul marched ahead and, while the others, in obedience to his
instructions, followed him without making the least noise, he stepped on
resolutely, like a belated wayfarer making for home.

They stopped at a narrow-fronted house, the ground-floor of which was
hardly distinguishable in the darkness of the night. Three steps led to
the door. Paul gave four sharp taps and, at the same time, took a key
from his pocket and opened the door.

He switched on his electric lamp again in the passage and, while his
companions continued as silent as before, turned to a mirror which rose
straight from the flagged floor. He gave four little taps on the mirror
and then pushed it, pressing one side of it. It masked the aperture of a
staircase which led to the basement; and Paul sent the light of his
lantern down the well.

This appeared to be a signal, the third signal agreed upon, for a voice
from below, a woman's voice, but hoarse and rasping in its tones, asked:

"Is that you, Daddy Walter?"

The moment had come to act. Without answering, Paul rushed down the
stairs, taking four steps at a time. He reached the bottom just as a
massive door was closing, almost barring his access to the cellar.

He gave a strong push and entered.

The Comtesse Hermine was there, in the semi-darkness, motionless,
hesitating what to do.

Then suddenly she ran to the other end of the cellar, seized a revolver
on the table, turned round and fired.

The hammer clicked, but there was no report.

She repeated the action three times; and the result, was three times the
same.

"It's no use going on," said Paul, with a laugh. "The charge has been
removed."

The countess uttered a cry of rage, opened the drawer of the table and,
taking another revolver, pulled the trigger four times, without
producing a sound.

"You may as well drop it," laughed Paul. "This one has been emptied,
too; and so has the one in the other drawer: so have all the firearms in
the house, for that matter."

Then, when she stared at him in amazement, without understanding, dazed
by her own helplessness, he bowed and introduced himself, just in two
words, which meant so much:

"Paul Delroze."



CHAPTER XIX

HOHENZOLLERN


The cellar, though smaller, looked like one of those large vaulted
basement halls which prevail in the Champagne district. Walls spotlessly
clean, a smooth floor with brick paths running across it, a warm
atmosphere, a curtained-off recess between two wine vats, chairs,
benches and rugs all went to form not only a comfortable abode, out of
the way of the shells, but also a safe refuge for any one who stood in
fear of indiscreet visits.

Paul remembered the ruins of the old lighthouse on the bank of the Yser
and the tunnel from Ornequin to Èbrecourt. So the struggle was still
continuing underground: a war of trenches and cellars, a war of spying
and trickery, the same unvarying, stealthy, disgraceful, suspicious,
criminal methods.

Paul had put out his lantern, and the room was now only dimly lit by an
oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, whose rays, thrown downward by an
opaque shade, cast a white circle in which the two of them stood by
themselves. Élisabeth and Bernard remained in the background, in the
shadow.

The sergeant and his men had not appeared, but they could be heard at
the foot of the stairs.

The countess did not move. She was dressed as on the evening of the
supper at Prince Conrad's villa. Her face showed no longer any fear or
alarm, but rather an effort of thought, as though she were trying to
calculate all the consequences of the position now revealed to her. Paul
Delroze? With what object was he attacking her? His intention--and this
was evidently the idea that gradually caused the Comtesse Hermine's
features to relax--his intention no doubt was to procure his wife's
liberty.

She smiled. Élisabeth a prisoner in Germany: what a trump card for
herself, caught in a trap but still able to command events!

At a sign from Paul, Bernard stepped forward and Paul said to the
countess:

"My brother-in-law. Major Hermann, when he lay trussed up in the
ferryman's house, may have seen him, just as he may have seen me. But,
in any case, the Comtesse Hermine--or, to be more exact, the Comtesse
d'Andeville--does not know or at least has forgotten her son, Bernard
d'Andeville."

She now seemed quite reassured, still wearing the air of one fighting
with equal or even more powerful weapons. She displayed no confusion at
the sight of Bernard, and said, in a careless tone:

"Bernard d'Andeville is very like his sister Élisabeth, of whom
circumstances have allowed me to see a great deal lately. It is only
three days since she and I were having supper with Prince Conrad. The
prince is very fond of Élisabeth, and he is quite right, for she is
charming . . . and so amiable!"

Paul and Bernard both made the same movement, which would have ended in
their flinging themselves upon the countess, if they had not succeeded
in restraining their hatred. Paul pushed aside his brother-in-law, of
whose intense anger he was conscious, and replied to his adversary's
challenge in an equally casual tone:

"Yes, I know all about it; I was there. I was even present at her
departure. Your friend Karl offered me a seat in his car and we went off
to your place at Hildensheim: a very handsome castle, which I should
have liked to see more thoroughly. . . . But it is not a safe house to
stay at; in fact, it is often deadly; and so . . ."

The countess looked at him with increasing disquiet. What did he mean to
convey? How did he know these things? She resolved to frighten him in
his turn, so as to gain some idea of the enemy's plans, and she said, in
a hard voice:

"Yes, deadly is the word. The air there is not good for everybody."

"A poisonous air."

"Just so."

"And are you nervous about Élisabeth?"

"Frankly, yes. The poor thing's health is none of the best, as it is;
and I shall not be easy . . ."

"Until she's dead, I suppose?"

She waited a second or two and then retorted, speaking very clearly, so
that Paul might take in the meaning of her words:

"Yes, until she is dead. . . . And that can't be far off . . . if it has
not happened already."

There was a pause of some length. Once more, in the presence of that
woman, Paul felt the same craving to commit murder, the same craving to
gratify his hatred. She must be killed. It was his duty to kill her, it
was a crime not to obey that duty.

Élisabeth was standing three paces back, in the dark. Slowly, without a
word, Paul turned in her direction, pressed the spring of his lantern
and flashed the light full on his wife's face.

Not for a moment did he suspect the violent effect which his action
would have on the Comtesse Hermine. A woman like her was incapable of
making a mistake, of thinking herself the victim of an hallucination or
the dupe of a resemblance. No, she at once accepted the fact that Paul
had delivered his wife and that Élisabeth was standing in front of her.
But how was so disastrous an event possible? Élisabeth, whom three days
before she had left in Karl's hands; Élisabeth, who at this very moment
ought to be either dead or a prisoner in a German fortress, the access
to which was guarded by more than two million German soldiers: Élisabeth
was here! She had escaped Karl in less than three days! She had fled
from Hildensheim Castle and passed through the lines of those two
million Germans!

The Comtesse Hermine sat down with distorted features at the table that
served her as a rampart and, in her fury, dug her clenched fists into
her cheeks. She realized the position. The time was past for jesting or
defiance. The time was past for bargaining. In the hideous game which
she was playing, the last chance of victory had suddenly slipped from
her grasp. She must yield before the conqueror; and that conqueror was
Paul Delroze.

She stammered:

"What do you propose to do? What is your object? To murder me?"

He shrugged his shoulders:

"We are not murderers. You are here to be tried. The penalty which you
will suffer will be the sentence passed upon you after a lawful trial,
in which you will be able to defend yourself."

A shiver ran through her; and she protested:

"You have no right to try me; you are not judges."

At that moment there was a noise on the stairs. A voice cried:

"Eyes front!"

And, immediately after, the door, which had remained ajar, was flung
open, admitting three officers in their long cloaks.

Paul hastened towards them and gave them chairs in that part of the room
which the light did not reach. A fourth arrived, who was also received
by Paul and took a seat to one side, a little farther away.

Élisabeth and Paul were close together.

Paul went back to his place in front and, standing beside the table,
said:

"There are your judges. I am the prosecutor."

And forthwith, without hesitation, as though he had settled beforehand
all the counts of the indictment which he was about to deliver, speaking
in a tone deliberately free from any trace of anger or hatred, he said:

"You were born at Hildensheim Castle, of which your grandfather was the
steward. The castle was given to your father after the war of 1870. Your
name is really Hermine: Hermine von Hohenzollern. Your father used to
boast of that name of Hohenzollern, though he had no right to it; but
the extraordinary favor in which he stood with the old Emperor prevented
any one from contesting his claim. He served in the campaign of 1870 as
a colonel and distinguished himself by the most outrageous acts of
cruelty and rapacity. All the treasures that adorn Hildensheim Castle
come from France; and, to complete the brazenness of it, each object
bears a note giving the place from which it came and the name of the
owner from whom it was stolen. In addition, in the hall there is a
marble slab inscribed in letters of gold with the name of all the French
villages burnt by order of His Excellency Colonel Count Hohenzollern.
The Kaiser has often visited the castle. Each time he passes in front
of that marble slab he salutes."

The countess listened without paying much heed. This story obviously
seemed to her of but indifferent importance. She waited until she
herself came into question.

Paul continued:

"You inherited from your father two sentiments which dominate your whole
existence. One of these is an immoderate love for the Hohenzollern
dynasty, with which your father appears to have been connected by the
hazard of an imperial or rather a royal whim. The other is a fierce and
savage hatred for France, which he regretted not to have injured as
deeply as he would have liked. Your love for the dynasty you
concentrated wholly, as soon as you had achieved womanhood, upon the man
who represents it now, so much so that, after entertaining the unlikely
hope of ascending the throne, you forgave him everything, even his
marriage, even his ingratitude, to devote yourself to him body and soul.
Married by him first to an Austrian prince, who died a mysterious death,
and then to a Russian prince, who died an equally mysterious death, you
worked solely for the greatness of your idol. At the time when war was
declared between England and the Transvaal, you were in the Transvaal.
At the time of the Russo-Japanese war, you were in Japan. You were
everywhere: at Vienna, when the Crown Prince Rudolph was assassinated;
at Belgrade when King Alexander and Queen Draga were assassinated. But
I will not linger over the part played by you in diplomatic events. It
is time that I came to your favorite occupation, the work which for the
last twenty years you have carried on against France."

An expression of wickedness and almost of happiness distorted the
Comtesse Hermine's features. Yes, indeed, that was her favorite
occupation. She had devoted all her strength to it and all her perverse
intelligence.

"And even so," added Paul, "I shall not linger over the gigantic work of
preparation and espionage which you directed. I have found one of your
accomplices, armed with a dagger bearing your initials, even in a
village of the Nord, in a church-steeple. All that happened was
conceived, organized and carried out by yourself. The proofs which I
collected, your correspondent's letters and your own letters, are
already in the possession of the court. But what I wish to lay special
stress upon is that part of your work which concerns the Château
d'Ornequin. It will not take long: a few facts, linked together by
murders, will be enough."

There was a further silence. The countess prepared to listen with a sort
of anxious curiosity. Paul went on:

"It was in 1894 that you suggested to the Emperor the piercing of a
tunnel from Èbrecourt to Corvigny. After the question had been studied
by the engineers, it was seen that this work, this '_kolossal_' work,
was not possible and could not be effective unless possession was first
obtained of the Château d'Ornequin. As it happened, the owner of the
property was in a very bad state of health. It was decided to wait. But,
as he seemed in no hurry to die, you came to Corvigny. A week later, he
died. Murder the first."

"You lie! You lie!" cried the countess. "You have no proof. I defy you
to produce a proof."

Paul, without replying, continued:

"The château was put up for sale and, strange to say, without the least
advertisement, secretly, so to speak. Now what happened was that the man
of business whom you had instructed bungled the matter so badly that the
château was declared sold to the Comte d'Andeville, who took up his
residence there in the following year, with his wife and his two
children. This led to anger and confusion and lastly a resolve to start
work, nevertheless, and to begin boring at the site of a little chapel
which, at that time, stood outside the walls of the park. The Emperor
came often to Èbrecourt. One day, on leaving the chapel, he was met and
recognized by my father and myself. Two minutes later, you were
accosting my father. He was stabbed and killed. I myself received a
wound. Murder the second. A month later, the Comtesse d'Andeville was
seized with a mysterious illness and went down to the south to die."

"You lie!" cried the countess, again. "Those are all lies! Not a single
proof! . . ."

"A month later," continued Paul, still speaking very calmly, "M.
d'Andeville, who had lost his wife, took so great a dislike to Ornequin
that he decided never to go back to it. Your plan was carried out at
once. Now that the château was free, it became necessary for you to
obtain a footing there. How was it done? By buying over the keeper,
Jérôme, and his wife. That wretched couple, who certainly had the excuse
that they were not Alsatians, as they pretended to be, but of Luxemburg
birth, accepted the bribe. Thenceforth you were at home, free to come to
Ornequin as and when you pleased. By your orders, Jérôme even went to
the length of keeping the death of the Comtesse Hermine, the real
Comtesse Hermine, a secret. And, as you also were a Comtesse Hermine and
as no one knew Mme. d'Andeville, who had led a secluded life, everything
went off well. Moreover, you continued to multiply your precautions.
There was one, among others, that baffled me. A portrait of the Comtesse
d'Andeville hung in the boudoir which she used to occupy. You had a
portrait painted of yourself, of the same size, so as to fit the frame
inscribed with the name of the countess; and this portrait showed you
under the same outward aspect, wearing the same clothes and ornaments.
In short, you became what you had striven to appear from the outset and
indeed during the lifetime of Mme. d'Andeville, whose dress you were
even then beginning to copy: you became the Comtesse Hermine
d'Andeville, at least during the period of your visits to Ornequin.
There was only one danger, the possibility of M. d'Andeville's
unexpected return. To ward this off with certainty, there was but one
remedy, murder. You therefore managed to become acquainted with M.
d'Andeville, which enabled you to watch his movements and correspond
with him. Only, something happened on which you had not reckoned. I mean
to say that a feeling which was really surprising in a woman like
yourself began gradually to attach you to the man whom you had chosen as
a victim. I have placed among the exhibits a photograph of yourself
which you sent to M. d'Andeville from Berlin. At that time, you were
hoping to induce him to marry you; but he saw through your schemes, drew
back and broke off the friendship."

The countess had knitted her brows. Her lips were distorted. The
lookers-on divined all the humiliation which she had undergone and all
the bitterness which she had retained in consequence. At the same time,
she felt no shame, but rather an increasing surprise at thus seeing her
life divulged down to the least detail and her murderous past dragged
from the obscurity in which she believed it buried.

"When war was declared," Paul continued, "your work was ripe. Stationed
in the Èbrecourt villa, at the entrance to the tunnel, you were ready.
My marriage to Élisabeth d'Andeville, my sudden arrival at the château,
my amazement at seeing the portrait of the woman who had killed my
father: all this was told you by Jérôme and took you a little by
surprise. You had hurriedly to lay a trap in which I, in my turn, was
nearly assassinated. But the mobilization rid you of my presence. You
were able to act. Three weeks later, Corvigny was bombarded, Ornequin
taken, Élisabeth a prisoner of Prince Conrad's. . . . That, for you, was
an indescribable period. It meant revenge; and also, thanks to you, it
meant the great victory, the accomplishment--or nearly so--of the great
dream, the apotheosis of the Hohenzollerns! Two days more and Paris
would be captured; two months more and Europe was conquered. The
intoxication of it! I know of words which you uttered at that time and I
have read lines written by you which bear witness to an absolute
madness: the madness of pride, the madness of boundless power, the
madness of cruelty; a barbarous madness, an impossible, superhuman
madness. . . . And then, suddenly, the rude awakening, the battle of the
Marne! Ah, I have seen your letters on this subject, too! And I know no
finer revenge. A woman of your intelligence was bound to see from the
first, as you did see, that it meant the breakdown of every hope and
certainty. You wrote that to the Emperor, yes, you wrote it! I have a
copy of your letter. . . . Meanwhile, defense became necessary. The
French troops were approaching. Through my brother-in-law, Bernard, you
learnt that I was at Corvigny. Would Élisabeth be delivered, Élisabeth
who knew all your secrets? No, she must die. You ordered her to be
executed. Everything was made ready. And, though she was saved, thanks
to Prince Conrad, and though, in default of her death, you had to
content yourself with a mock execution intended to cut short my
inquiries, at least she was carried off like a slave. And you had two
victims for your consolation: Jérôme and Rosalie. Your accomplices,
smitten with tearful remorse by Élisabeth's tortures, tried to escape
with her. You dreaded their evidence against you: they were shot.
Murders the third and fourth. And the next day there were two more, two
soldiers whom you had killed, taking them for Bernard and myself.
Murders the fifth and sixth."

Thus was the whole drama reconstructed in all its tragic phases and in
accordance with the order of the events and murders. And it was a
horrible thing to look upon this woman, guilty of so many crimes, walled
in by destiny, trapped in this cellar, face to face with her mortal
enemies. And yet how was it that she did not appear to have lost all
hope? For such was the case; and Bernard noticed it.

"Look at her," he said, going up to Paul. "She has twice already
consulted her watch. Any one would think that she was expecting a
miracle or something more, a direct, inevitable aid which is to arrive
at a definite hour. See, her eyes are glancing about. . . . She is
listening for something. . . ."

"Order all the soldiers at the foot of the stairs to come in," Paul
answered. "There is no reason why they should not hear what I have
still to say."

And, turning towards the countess, he said, in tones which gradually
betrayed more feeling:

"We are coming to the last act. All this part of the contest you
conducted under the aspect of Major Hermann, which made it easier for
you to follow the armies and play your part as chief spy. Hermann,
Hermine. . . . The Major Hermann whom, when necessary, you passed off as
your brother was yourself, Comtesse Hermine. And it was you whose
conversation I overheard with the sham Laschen, or rather Karl the spy,
in the ruins of the lighthouse on the bank of the Yser. And it was you
whom I caught and bound in the attic of the ferryman's house. Ah, what a
fine stroke you missed that day! Your three enemies lay wounded, within
reach of your hand, and you ran away without seeing them, without making
an end of them! And you knew nothing further about us, whereas we knew
all about your plans. An appointment for the 10th of January at
Èbrecourt, that ill-omened appointment which you made with Karl while
telling him of your implacable determination to do away with Élisabeth.
And I was there, punctually, on the 10th of January! I looked on at
Prince Conrad's supper-party! And I was there, after the supper, when
you handed Karl the poison. I was there, on the driver's seat of the
motor-car, when you gave Karl your last instructions. I was everywhere!
And that same evening Karl died. And the next night I kidnaped Prince
Conrad. And the day after, that is to say, two days ago, holding so
important a hostage and thus compelling the Emperor to treat with me, I
dictated conditions of which the first was the immediate release of
Élisabeth. The Emperor gave way. And here you see us!"

In all this speech, a speech which showed the Comtesse Hermine with what
implacable energy she had been hunted down, there was one word which
overwhelmed her as though it related the most terrible of catastrophes.
She stammered:

"Dead? You say that Karl is dead?"

"Shot down by his mistress at the moment when he was trying to kill me,"
cried Paul, once again mastered by his hatred. "Shot down like a mad
dog! Yes, Karl the spy is dead; and even after his death he remained the
traitor that he had been all his life. You were asking for my proofs: I
discovered them on Karl's person! It was in his pocket-book that I read
the story of your crimes and found copies of your letters and some of
the originals as well. He foresaw that sooner or later, when your work
was accomplished, you would sacrifice him to secure your own safety; and
he revenged himself in advance. He avenged himself just as Jérôme the
keeper and his wife Rosalie revenged themselves, when about to be shot
by your orders, by revealing to Élisabeth the mysterious part which you
played at the Château d'Ornequin. So much for your accomplices! You kill
them, but they destroy you. It is no longer I who accuse you, it is
they. Your letters and their evidence are in the hands of your judges.
What answer have you to make?"

Paul was standing almost against her. They were separated at the most by
a corner of the table; and he was threatening her with all his anger and
all his loathing. She retreated towards the wall, under a row of pegs
from which hung skirts and blouses, a whole wardrobe of various
disguises. Though surrounded, caught in a trap, confounded by an
accumulation of proofs, unmasked and helpless, she maintained an
attitude of challenge and defiance. The game did not yet seem lost. She
had some trump cards left in her hand; and she said:

"I have no answer to make. You speak of a woman who has committed
murders; and I am not that woman. It is not a question of proving that
the Comtesse Hermine is a spy and a murderess: it is a question of
proving that I am the Comtesse Hermine. Who can prove that?"

"_I_ can!"

Sitting apart from the three officers whom Paul had mentioned as
constituting the court was a fourth, who had listened as silently and
impassively as they. He stepped forward. The light of the lamp shone on
his face. The countess murmured:

"Stéphane d'Andeville. . . . Stéphane. . . ."

It was the father of Élisabeth and Bernard. He was very pale, weakened
by the wounds which he had received and from which he was only beginning
to recover.

He embraced his children. Bernard expressed his surprise and delight at
seeing him there.

"Yes," he said, "I had a message from the commander-in-chief and I came
the moment Paul sent for me. Your husband is a fine fellow, Élisabeth.
He told me what had happened when we met a little while ago. And I now
see all that he has done . . . to crush that viper!"

He had taken up his stand opposite the countess; and his hearers felt
beforehand the full importance of the words which he was about to speak.
For a moment, she lowered her head before him. But soon her eyes once
more flashed defiance; and she said:

"So you, too, have come to accuse me? What have you to say against me?
Lies, I suppose? Infamies? . . ."

There was a long pause after those words. Then, speaking slowly, he
said:

"I come, in the first place, as a witness to give the evidence as to
your identity for which you were asking just now. You introduced
yourself to me long ago by a name which was not your own, a name under
which you succeeded in gaining my confidence. Later, when you tried to
bring about a closer relationship between us, you revealed to me who you
really were, hoping in this way to dazzle me with your titles and your
connections. It is therefore my right and my duty to declare before God
and man that you are really and truly the Countess Hermine von
Hohenzollern. The documents which you showed me were genuine. And it
was just because you were the Countess von Hohenzollern that I broke off
relations which in any case were painful and disagreeable to me, for
reasons which I should have been puzzled to state. That is my evidence."

"It is infamous evidence!" she cried, in a fury. "Lying evidence, as I
said it would be! Not a proof!"

"Not a proof?" echoed the Comte d'Andeville, moving closer to her and
shaking with rage. "What about this photograph, signed by yourself,
which you sent me from Berlin? This photograph in which you had the
impudence to dress up like my wife? Yes, you, you! You did this thing!
You thought that, by trying to make your picture resemble that of my
poor loved one, you would rouse in my breast feelings favorable to
yourself! And you did not feel that what you were doing was the worst
insult, the worst outrage that you could offer to the dead! And you
dared, you, you, after what had happened . . ."

Like Paul Delroze a few minutes before, the count was standing close
against her, threatening her with his hatred. She muttered, in a sort of
embarrassment:

"Well, why not?"

He clenched his fists and said:

"As you say, why not? I did not know at the time what you were . . . and
I knew nothing of the tragedy . . . of the tragedy of the past. . . . It
is only to-day that I have been able to compare the facts. And, whereas
I repulsed you at that time with a purely instinctive repulsion, I
accuse you now with unparalleled execration . . . now when I know, yes,
know, with absolute certainty. Long ago, when my poor wife was dying,
time after time the doctor said to me, 'It's a strange illness. She has
bronchitis and pneumonia, I know; and yet there are things which I don't
understand, symptoms--why conceal it?--symptoms of poisoning.' I used to
protest. The theory seemed impossible! My wife poisoned? And by whom? By
you, Comtesse Hermine, by you! I declare it to-day. By you! I swear it,
as I hope to be saved. Proofs? Why, your whole life bears witness
against you. Listen, there is one point on which Paul Delroze failed to
shed light. He did not understand why, when you murdered his father, you
wore clothes like those of my wife. Why did you? For this hateful reason
that, even at that time, my wife's death was resolved upon and that you
already wished to create in the minds of those who might see you a
confusion between the Comtesse d'Andeville and yourself. The proof is
undeniable. My wife stood in your way: you killed her. You guessed that,
once my wife was dead, I should never come back to Ornequin; and you
killed my wife. Paul Delroze, you have spoken of six murders. This is
the seventh: the murder of the Comtesse d'Andeville."

The count had raised his two clenched fists and was shaking them in the
Comtesse Hermine's face. He was trembling with rage and seemed on the
point of striking her. She, however, remained impassive. She made no
attempt to deny this latest accusation. It was as though everything had
become indifferent to her, this unexpected charge as well as all those
already leveled at her. She appeared to have no thought of impending
danger or of the need of replying. Her mind was elsewhere. She was
listening to something other than those words, seeing something other
than what was before her eyes; and, as Bernard had remarked, it was as
though she were preoccupied with outside happenings rather than with the
terrible position in which she found herself.

But why? What was she hoping for?

A minute elapsed; and another minute.

Then, somewhere in the cellar, in the upper part of it, there was a
sound, a sort of click.

The countess drew herself up. And she listened with all her concentrated
attention and with an expression of such eagerness that nobody disturbed
the tremendous silence. Paul Delroze and M. d'Andeville had
instinctively stepped back to the table. And the Comtesse Hermine went
on listening. . . .

Suddenly, above her head, in the very thickness of the vaulted ceiling,
an electric bell rang . . . only for a few seconds. . . . Four peals of
equal length. . . . And that was all.



CHAPTER XX

THE DEATH PENALTY--AND A CAPITAL PUNISHMENT


The Comtesse Hermine started up triumphantly; and this movement of hers
was even more dramatic than the inexplicable vibration of that electric
bell. She gave a cry of fierce delight, followed by an outburst of
laughter. The whole expression of her face changed. It denoted no more
anxiety, no more of that tension indicating a groping and bewildered
mind, nothing but insolence, assurance, scorn and intense pride.

"Fools!" she snarled. "Fools! So you really believed--oh, what
simpletons you Frenchmen are!--that you had me caught like a rat in a
trap? Me! Me! . . ."

The words rushed forth so volubly, so hurriedly, that her utterance was
impeded. She became rigid, closing her eyes for a moment. Then,
summoning up a great effort of will, she put out her right arm, pushed
aside a chair and uncovered a little mahogany slab with a brass switch,
for which she felt with her hand while her eyes remained turned on Paul,
on the Comte d'Andeville, on his son and on the three officers. And, in
a dry, cutting voice, she rapped out:

"What have I to fear from you now? You wish to know if I am the Countess
von Hohenzollern? Yes, I am. I don't deny it, I even proclaim the fact.
The actions which you, in your stupid way, call murders, yes, I
committed them all. It was my duty to the Emperor, to the greater
Germany. . . . A spy? Not at all. Simply a German woman. And what a
German woman does for her country is rightly done. So let us have no
more silly phrases, no more babbling about the past. Nothing matters but
the present and the future. And I am once more mistress of the present
and the future both. Thanks to you, I am resuming the direction of
events; and we shall have some amusement. . . . Shall I tell you
something? All that has happened here during the past few days was
prepared by myself. The bridges carried away by the river were sapped at
their foundations by my orders. Why? For the trivial purpose of making
you fall back? No doubt, that was necessary first: we had to announce a
victory. Victory or not, it shall be announced; and it will have its
effect, that I promise you. But I wanted something better; and I have
succeeded."

She stopped and then, leaning her body towards her hearers, continued,
in a lower voice:

"The retreat, the disorder among your troops, the need of opposing our
advance and bringing up reinforcements must needs compel your
commander-in-chief to come here and take counsel with his generals. For
months past, I have been lying in wait for him. It was impossible for me
to get within reach of him. So what was I to do? Why, of course, as I
couldn't go to him, I must make him come to me and lure him to a place,
chosen by myself, where I had made all my arrangements. Well, he has
come. My arrangements are made. And I have only to act. . . . I have
only to act! He is here, in a room at the little villa which he occupies
whenever he comes to Soissons. He is there, I know it. I was waiting for
the signal which one of my men was to give me. You have heard the signal
yourselves. So there is no doubt about it. The man whom I want is at
this moment deliberating with his generals in a house which I know and
which I have had mined. He has with him a general commanding an army and
another general, the commander of an army corps. Both are of the ablest.
There are three of them, not to speak of their subordinates. And I have
only to make a movement, understand what I say, a single movement, I
have only to touch this lever to blow them all up, together with the
house in which they are. Am I to make that movement?"

There was a sharp click. Bernard d'Andeville had cocked his revolver:

"We must kill the beast!" he cried.

Paul rushed at him, shouting:

"Hold your tongue! And don't move a finger!"

The countess began laughing again; and her laugh was full of wicked
glee:

"You're right, Paul Delroze, my man. You take in the situation, you do.
However quickly that young booby may fire his bullet at me, I shall
always have time to pull the lever. And that's what you don't want,
isn't it? That's what these other gentlemen and you want to avoid at all
costs . . . even at the cost of my liberty, eh? For that is how the
matter stands, alas! All my fine plan is falling to pieces because I am
in your hands. But I alone am worth as much as your three great
generals, am I not? And I have every right to spare them in order to
save myself. So are we agreed? Their lives against mine! And at once!
. . . Paul Delroze, I give you one minute in which to consult your
friends. If in one minute, speaking in their name and your own, you do
not give me your word of honor that you consider me free and that I
shall receive every facility for crossing the Swiss frontier, then . . .
then heigh-ho, up we go, as the children say! . . . Oh, how I've got
you, all of you! And the humor of it! Hurry up, friend Delroze, your
word! Yes, that's all I ask. Hang it, the word of a French officer! Ha,
ha, ha, ha!"

Her nervous, scornful laugh went on ringing through the dead silence.
And it happened gradually that its tone rang less surely, like words
that fail to produce the intended effect. It rang false, broke and
suddenly ceased.

And she stood in dumb amazement: Paul Delroze had not budged, nor had
any of the officers nor any of the soldiers in the room.

She shook her fist at them:

"You're to hurry, do you hear? . . . You have one minute, my French
friends, one minute and no more! . . ."

Not a man moved.

She counted the seconds in a low voice and announced them aloud by tens.

At the fortieth second, she stopped, with an anxious look on her face.
Those present were as motionless as before. Then she yielded to a fit of
fury:

"Why, you must be mad!" she cried. "Don't you understand? Oh, perhaps
you don't believe me? Yes, that's it, they don't believe me! They can't
imagine that it's possible! Possible? Why, it's your own soldiers who
worked for me! Yes, by laying telephone-lines between the post-office
and the villa used for head-quarters! My assistants had only to tap the
wires and the thing was done: the mine-chamber Under the villa was
connected with this cellar. Do you believe me now?"

Her hoarse, panting voice ceased. Her misgivings, which had become more
and more marked, distorted her features. Why did none of those men move?
Why did they pay no attention to her orders? Had they taken the
incredible resolution to accept whatever happened rather than show her
mercy?

"Look here," she said, "you understand me, surely? Or else you have all
gone mad! Come, think of it: your generals, the effect which their death
would cause, the tremendous impression of our power which it would give!
. . . And the confusion that would follow! The retreat of your troops!
The disorganization of the staff! . . . Come, come! . . ."

It seemed as if she was trying to convince them; nay, more, as if she
was beseeching them to look at things from her point of view and to
admit the consequence which she had attributed to her action. For her
plan to succeed, it was essential that they should consent to act
logically. Otherwise . . . otherwise . . .

Suddenly she seemed to recoil against the humiliating sort of
supplication to which she had been stooping. Resuming her threatening
attitude, she cried:

"So much the worse for them! So much the worse for them! It will be you
who have condemned them! So you insist upon it? We are quite agreed?
. . . And then I suppose you think you've got me! Come, come now! Even
if you show yourselves pig-headed, the Comtesse Hermine has not said her
last word! You don't know the Comtesse Hermine! The Comtesse Hermine
never surrenders! . . ."

She was possessed by a sort of frenzy and was horrible to look at.
Twisting and writhing with rage, hideous of face, aged by fully twenty
years, she suggested the picture of a devil burning in the flames of
hell. She cursed. She blasphemed. She gave vent to a string of oaths.
She even laughed, at the thought of the catastrophe which her next
movement would produce. And she spluttered:

"All right! It's you, it's you who are the executioners! . . . Oh, what
folly! . . . So you will have it so? But they must be mad! Look at them,
calmly sacrificing their generals, their commander-in-chief, in their
stupid obstinacy. Well, so much the worse for them! You have insisted on
it. I hold you responsible. A word from you, a single word. . . ."

She had a last moment of hesitation. With a fierce and unyielding face
she stared at those stubborn men who seemed to be obeying an implacable
command. Not one of them budged.

Then it seemed as if, at the moment of taking the fatal decision, she
was overcome with such an outburst of voluptuous wickedness that it made
her forget the horror of her own position. She simply said:

"May God's will be done and my Emperor gain the victory!"

Stiffening her body, her eyes staring before her, she touched the switch
with her finger.

The effect was almost immediate. Through the outer air, through the
vaulted roof, the sound of the explosion reached the cellar. The ground
seemed to shake, as though the vibration had spread through the bowels
of the earth.

Then came silence. The Comtesse Hermine listened for a few seconds
longer. Her face was radiant with joy. She repeated:

"So that my Emperor may gain the victory!"

And suddenly, bringing her arm down to her side, she thrust herself
backwards, among the skirts and blouses against which she was leaning,
and seemed actually to sink into the wall and disappear from sight.

A heavy door closed with a bang and, almost at the same moment, a shot
rang through the cellar. Bernard had fired at the row of clothes. And he
was rushing towards the hidden door when Paul collared him and held him
where he stood.

Bernard struggled in Paul's grasp:

"But she's escaping us! . . . Why can't you let me go after her? . . .
Look here, surely you remember the Èbrecourt tunnel and the system of
electric wires? This is the same thing exactly! And here she is getting
away! . . ."

He could not understand Paul's conduct. And his sister was as indignant
as himself. Here was the foul creature who had killed their mother, who
had stolen their mother's name and place; and they were allowing her to
escape.

"Paul," she cried, "Paul, you must go after her, you must make an end of
her! . . . Paul, you can't forget all that she has done!"

Élisabeth did not forget. She remembered the Château d'Ornequin and
Prince Conrad's villa and the evening when she had been compelled to
toss down a bumper of champagne and the bargain enforced upon her and
all the shame and torture to which she had been put.

But Paul paid no attention to either the brother or the sister, nor did
the officers and soldiers. All observed the same rigidly impassive
attitude, seemed unaffected by what was happening.

Two or three minutes passed, during which a few words were exchanged in
whispers, while not a soul stirred. Broken down and shattered with
excitement, Élisabeth wept. Bernard's flesh crept at the sound of his
sister's sobs and he felt as if he was suffering from one of those
nightmares in which we witness the most horrible sights without having
the strength or the power to act.

And then something happened which everybody except Bernard and Élisabeth
seemed to think quite natural. There was a grating sound behind the row
of clothes. The invisible door moved on its hinges. The clothes parted
and made way for a human form which was flung on the ground like a
bundle.

Bernard d'Andeville uttered an exclamation of delight. Élisabeth looked
and laughed through her tears. It was the Comtesse Hermine, bound and
gagged.

Three gendarmes entered after her:

"We've delivered the goods, sir," one of them jested, with a fat, jolly
chuckle. "We were beginning to get a bit nervous and to wonder if you'd
guessed right and if this was really the way she meant to clear out by.
But, by Jove, sir, the baggage gave us some work to do. A proper
hell-cat! She struggled and bit like a badger. And the way she yelled!
Oh, the vixen!" And, to the soldiers, who were in fits of laughter,
"Mates, this bit of game was just what we wanted to finish off our day's
hunting. It's a grand bag; and Lieutenant Delroze scented the trail
finely. There's a picture for you! A whole gang of Boches in one day!
. . . Look out, sir, what are you doing? Mind the beast's fangs!"

Paul was stooping over the spy. He loosened her gag, which seemed to be
hurting her. She at once tried to call out, but succeeded only in
uttering stifled and incoherent syllables. Nevertheless, Paul was able
to make out a few words, against which he protested:

"No," he said, "not even that to console you. The game is lost. And
that's the worst punishment of all, isn't it? To die without having done
the harm you meant to do. And such harm, too!"

He rose and went up to the group of officers. The three, having
fulfilled their functions as judges, were talking together; and one of
them said to Paul:

"Well played, Delroze. My best congratulations."

"Thank you, sir. I would have prevented this attempt to escape. But I
wanted to heap up every possible proof against the woman and not only to
accuse her of the crimes which she has committed, but to show her to you
in the act of committing crime."

"Ay; and there's nothing half-hearted about the vixen! But for you,
Delroze, the villa would have been blown up with all my staff and myself
into the bargain! . . . But what was the explosion which we heard?"

"A condemned building, sir, which had already been demolished by the
shells and which the commandant of the fortress wanted to get rid of. We
only had to divert the electric wire which starts from here."

"So the whole gang is captured?"

"Yes, sir, thanks to a spy whom I had the luck to lay my hands on just
now and who told me what I had to do in order to get in here. He had
first revealed the Comtesse Hermine's plan in full detail, together with
the names of all his accomplices. It was arranged that the man was to
let the countess know, at ten o'clock this evening, by means of that
electric bell, if you were holding a council in your villa. The notice
was given, but by one of our own soldiers, acting under my orders."

"Well done; and, once more, thank you, Delroze."

The general stepped into the circle of light. He was tall and powerfully
built. His upper lip was covered with a thick white mustache.

There was a movement of surprise among those present. Bernard
d'Andeville and his sister came forward. The soldiers stood to
attention. They had recognized the general commanding-in-chief. With him
were the two generals of whom the countess had spoken.

The gendarmes had pushed the spy against the wall opposite. They untied
her legs, but had to support her, because her knees were giving way
beneath her.

And her face expressed unspeakable amazement even more than terror. With
wide-open eyes she stared at the man whom she had meant to kill, the man
whom she believed to be dead and who was alive and who would shortly
pronounce the inevitable sentence of death upon her.

Paul repeated:

"To die without having done the harm you intended to do, that is the
really terrible thing, is it not?"

The commander-in-chief was alive! The hideous and tremendous plot had
failed! He was alive and so were his officers and so was every one of
the spy's enemies. Paul Delroze, Stéphane d'Andeville, Bernard,
Élisabeth, those whom she had pursued with her indefatigable hatred:
they were all there! She was about to die gazing at the vision, so
horrible for her, of her enemies reunited and happy.

And above all she was about to die with the thought that everything was
lost. Her great dream was shattered to pieces. Her Emperor's throne was
tottering. The very soul of the Hohenzollerns was departing with the
Comtesse Hermine. And all this was plainly visible in her haggard eyes,
from which gleams of madness flashed at intervals.

The general said to one of those with him:

"Have you given the order? Are they shooting the lot?"

"Yes, this evening, sir."

"Very well, we'll begin with this woman. And at once. Here, where we
are."

The spy gave a start. With a distortion of all her features she
succeeded in shifting her gag; and they heard her beseeching for mercy
in a torrent of words and moans.

"Let us go," said the commander-in-chief.

He felt two burning hands press his own. Élisabeth was leaning towards
him and entreating him with tears.

Paul introduced his wife. The general said, gently:

"I see that you feel pity, madame, in spite of all that you have gone
through. But you must have no pity, madame. Of course it is the pity
which we cannot help feeling for those about to die. But we must have no
pity for these people or for members of their race. They have placed
themselves beyond the pale of mankind; and we must never forget it. When
you are a mother, madame, you will teach your children a feeling to
which France was a stranger and which will prove a safeguard in the
future: hatred of the Huns."

He took her by the arm in a friendly fashion and led her towards the
door:

"Allow me to see you out. Are you coming, Delroze? You must need rest
after such a day's work."

They went out.

The spy was shrieking:

"Mercy! Mercy!"

The soldiers were already drawn up in line along the opposite wall.

The count, Paul and Bernard waited for a moment. She had killed the
Comte d'Andeville's wife. She had killed Bernard's mother and Paul's
father. She had tortured Élisabeth. And, though their minds were
troubled, they felt the great calm which the sense of justice gives. No
hatred stirred them. No thought of vengeance excited them.

The gendarmes had fastened the spy by the waistband to a nail in the
wall, to hold her up. They now stood aside.

Paul said to her:

"One of the soldiers here is a priest. If you need his assistance.
. . ."

But she did not understand. She did not listen. She merely saw what was
happening and what was about to happen; and she stammered without
ceasing:

"Mercy! . . . Mercy! . . . Mercy! . . ."

They went out. When they came to the top of the staircase, a word of
command reached their ears:

"Present! . . ."

Lest he should hear more, Paul slammed the inner and outer hall-doors
behind him.

Outside was the open air, the good pure air with which men love to fill
their lungs. Troops were marching along, singing as they went. Paul and
Bernard learnt that the battle was over and our positions definitely
assured. Here also the Comtesse Hermine had failed. . . .

       *       *       *       *       *

A few days later, at the Château d'Ornequin, Second Lieutenant Bernard
d'Andeville, accompanied by twelve men, entered the casemate,
well-warmed and well-ventilated, which served as a prison for Prince
Conrad.

On the table were some bottles and the remains of an ample repast. The
prince lay sleeping on a bed against the wall. Bernard tapped him on the
shoulder:

"Courage, sir."

The prisoner sprang up, terrified:

"Eh? What's that?"

"I said, courage, sir. The hour has come."

Pale as death, the prince stammered:

"Courage? . . . Courage? . . . I don't understand. . . . Oh Lord, oh
Lord, is it possible?"

"Everything is always possible," said Bernard, "and what has to happen
always happens, especially calamities." And he suggested, "A glass of
rum, sir, to pull you together? A cigarette?"

"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" the prince repeated, trembling like a leaf.

Mechanically he took the cigarette offered him. But it fell from his
lips after the first few puffs.

"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" he never ceased stammering.

And his distress increased when he saw the twelve men waiting, with
their rifles at rest. He wore the distraught look of the condemned man
who beholds the outline of the guillotine in the pale light of the dawn.
They had to carry him to the terrace, in front of a strip of broken
wall.

"Sit down, sir," said Bernard.

Even without this invitation, the wretched man would have been incapable
of standing on his feet. He sank upon a stone.

The twelve soldiers took up their position facing him. He bent his head
so as not to see; and his whole body jerked like that of a dancing doll
when you pull its strings.

A moment passed; and Bernard asked, in a kind and friendly tone:

"Would you rather have it front or back?"

The prince, utterly overwhelmed, did not reply; and Bernard exclaimed:

"I'm afraid you're not very well, sir. Come, your royal highness must
pull yourself together. You have lots of time. Lieutenant Delroze won't
be here for another ten minutes. He was very keen on being present at
this--how shall I put it?--at this little ceremony. And really he will
be disappointed in your appearance. You're green in the face, sir."

Still displaying the greatest interest and as though seeking to divert
the prince's thoughts, he said:

"What can I tell you, sir, by way of news? You know that your friend
the Comtesse Hermine is dead, I suppose? Ha, ha, that makes you prick up
your ears, I see! It's quite true: that good and great woman was
executed the other day at Soissons. And, upon my word, she cut just as
poor a figure as you are doing now, sir. They had to hold her up. And
the way she yelled and screamed for mercy! There was no pose about her,
no dignity. But I can see that your thoughts are straying. Bother! What
can I do to cheer you up? Ah, I have an idea! . . ."

He took a little paper-bound book from his pocket:

"Look here, sir, I'll read to you. Of course, a Bible would be more
appropriate; only I haven't one on me. And the great thing, after all,
is to help you to forget; and I know nothing better for a German who
prides himself on his country and his army than this little book. We'll
dip into it together, shall we? It's called _German Crimes as Related by
German Eye-witnesses_. It consists of extracts from the diaries of your
fellow-countrymen. It is therefore one of those irrefutable documents
which earn the respect of German science. I'll open it at random. Here
goes. 'The inhabitants fled from the village. It was a horrible sight.
All the houses were plastered with blood; and the faces of the dead were
hideous to see. We buried them all at once; there were sixty of them,
including a number of old women, some old men, a woman about to become a
mother, and three children who had pressed themselves against one
another and who died like that. All the survivors were turned out; and
I saw four little boys carrying on two sticks a cradle with a child of
five or six months in it. The whole village was sacked. And I also saw a
mother with two babies and one of them had a great wound in the head and
had lost an eye.'"

Bernard stopped to address the prince:

"Interesting reading, is it not, sir?"

And he went on:

"'_26 August._ The charming village of Gué d'Hossus, in the Ardennes,
has been burnt to the ground, though quite innocent, as it seems to me.
They tell me that a cyclist fell from his machine and that the fall made
his rifle go off of its own accord, so they fired in his direction.
After that, they simply threw the male inhabitants into the flames.'
Here's another bit: '_25 August._' This was in Belgium. 'We have shot
three hundred of the inhabitants of the town. Those who survived the
volleys were told off to bury the rest. You should have seen the women's
faces!'"

And the reading continued, interrupted by judicious reflections which
Bernard emitted in a placid voice, as though he were commenting on an
historical work. Prince Conrad, meanwhile, seemed on the verge of
fainting.

When Paul arrived at the Château d'Ornequin and, alighting from his car,
went to the terrace, the sight of the prince and the careful
stage-setting with the twelve soldiers told him of the rather uncanny
little comedy which Bernard was playing. He uttered a reproachful
protest:

"I say! Bernard!"

The young man exclaimed, in an innocent voice:

"Ah, Paul, so you've come? Quick! His royal highness and I were waiting
for you. We shall be able to finish off this job at last!"

He went and stood in front of his men at ten paces from the prince:

"Are you ready, sir? Ah, I see you prefer it front way! . . . Very well,
though I can't say that you're very attractive seen from the front.
However. . . . Oh, but look here, this will never do! Don't bend your
legs like that, I beg of you. Hold yourself up, do! And please look
pleasant. Now then; keep your eyes on my cap. . . . I'm counting: one
. . . two . . . Look pleasant, can't you?"

He had lowered his head and was holding a pocket camera against his
chest. Presently he squeezed the bulb, the camera clicked and Bernard
exclaimed:

"There! I've got you! Sir, I don't know how to thank you. You have been
_so_ kind, _so_ patient. The smile was a little forced perhaps, like the
smile of a man on his way to the gallows, and the eyes were like the
eyes of a corpse. Otherwise the expression was quite charming. A
thousand thanks."

Paul could not help laughing. Prince Conrad had not fully grasped the
joke. However, he felt that the danger was past and he was now trying to
put a good face on things, like a gentleman accustomed to bear any sort
of misfortune with dignified contempt.

Paul said:

"You are free, sir. I have an appointment with one of the Emperor's
aides-de-camp on the frontier at three o'clock to-day. He is bringing
twenty French prisoners and I am to hand your royal highness over to him
in exchange. Pray, step into the car."

Prince Conrad obviously did not grasp a word of what Paul was saying.
The appointment on the frontier, the twenty prisoners and the rest were
just so many phrases which failed to make any impression on his
bewildered brain. But, when he had taken his seat and when the motor-car
drove slowly round the lawn, he saw something that completed his
discomfiture. Élisabeth stood on the grass and made him a smiling
curtsey.

It was an obvious hallucination. He rubbed his eyes with a flabbergasted
air which so clearly indicated what was in his mind that Bernard said:

"Make no mistake, sir. It's my sister all right. Yes, Paul Delroze and I
thought we had better go and fetch her in Germany. So we turned up our
Baedeker, asked for an interview with the Emperor and it was His Majesty
himself who, with his usual good grace. . . . Oh, by the way, sir, you
must expect to receive a wigging from the governor! His Majesty is
simply furious with you. Such a scandal, you know! Behaving like a
rotter, you know! You're in for a bad time, sir!"

The exchange took place at the hour named. The twenty prisoners were
handed over. Paul Delroze took the aide-de-camp aside:

"Sir," he said, "you will please tell the Emperor that the Comtesse
Hermine von Hohenzollern made an attempt to assassinate the
commander-in-chief. She was arrested by me, tried by court-martial and
sentenced and has been shot by the commander-in-chief's orders. I am in
possession of a certain number of her papers, especially private letters
to which I have no doubt that the Emperor himself attaches the greatest
importance. They will be returned to His Majesty on the day when the
Château d'Ornequin recovers all its furniture, pictures and other
valuables. I wish you good-day, sir."

It was over. Paul had won all along the line. He had delivered Élisabeth
and revenged his father's death. He had destroyed the head of the German
secret service and, by insisting on the release of the twenty French
prisoners, kept all the promises which he had made to the general
commanding-in-chief. He had every right to be proud of his work.

On the way back, Bernard asked:

"So I shocked you just now?"

"You more than shocked me," said Paul, laughing. "You made me feel
indignant."

"Indignant! Really? Indignant, quotha! Here's a young bounder who tries
to take your wife from you and who is let off with a few days' solitary
confinement! Here's one of the leaders of those highwaymen who go about
committing murder and pillage; and he goes home free to start pillaging
and murdering again! Why, it's absurd! Just think: all those scoundrels
who wanted war--emperors and princes and emperors' and princes'
wives--know nothing of war but its pomp and its tragic beauty and
absolutely nothing of the agony that falls upon humbler people! They
suffer morally in the dread of the punishment that awaits them, but not
physically, in their flesh and in the flesh of their flesh. The others
die. They go on living. And, when I have this unparalleled opportunity
of getting hold of one of them, when I might take revenge on him and his
confederates and shoot him in cold blood, as they shoot our sisters and
our wives, you think it out of the way that I should put the fear of
death into him for just ten minutes! Why, if I had listened to sound
human and logical justice, I ought to have visited him with some
trifling torture which he would never have forgotten, such as cutting
off one of the ears or the tip of his nose!"

"You're perfectly right," said Paul.

"There, you see, you agree with me! I should have cut off the tip of his
nose! What a fool I was not to do it, instead of resting content with
giving him a wretched lesson which he will have forgotten by to-morrow!
What an ass I am! However, my one consolation is that I have taken a
photograph which will constitute a priceless document: the face of a
Hohenzollern in the presence of death. Oh, I ask you, did you see his
face? . . ."

The car was passing through Ornequin village. It was deserted. The Huns
had burnt down every house and taken away all the inhabitants, driving
them before them like troops of slaves.

But they saw, seated amid the ruins, a man in rags. He was an old man.
He stared at them foolishly, with a madman's eyes. Beside him a child
was holding forth its arms, poor little arms from which the hands were
gone. . . .


THE END



Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original edition have been corrected.

In the Table of Contents, "Elisabeth's Diary" was changed to
"Élisabeth's Diary".

In Chapter I, "was standin on the pavement" was changed to "was standing
on the pavement".

In Chapter II, "The estate surrounded by farms and fields" was changed
to "The estate, surrounded by farms and fields", and "Élisazeth suddenly
gripped her husband's arm" was changed to "Élisabeth suddenly gripped
her husband's arm".

In Chapter III, a quotation marks were added after "Confess it, you've
made a mistake" and "the wretched, monstrous woman", and "a regular,
montononous, uninterrupted ringing" was changed to "a regular,
monotonous, uninterrupted ringing".

In Chapter IV, "_That's a queer fellow_, said he colonel" was changed to
"_That's a queer fellow_, said the colonel", and "care of M.
D'Andeville" was changed to "care of M. d'Andeville".

In Chapter V, "but got no farther" was changed to "but go no farther".

In Chapter VI, "echoed Paul, is alarm" was changed to "echoed Paul, in
alarm", "ought to be cheerful. . ." was changed to "ought to be
cheerful. . . .", and "rather a serious of explosions" was changed to
"rather a series of explosions".

In Chapter VII, a missing period was added after "at a man's height".

In Chapter XIII, a single quote (') was changed to a double quote (")
after "You're sure of holding out, aren't you?", "essential imporance"
was changed to "essential importance", and a quotation mark was added
after "Is it really you? . . ."

In Chapter XVI, "He'll go with you like a limb" was changed to "He'll go
with you like a lamb".

In Chapter XVII, a single quote (') was changed to a double quote (")
after "A damnable lie!"

In Chapter XVIII, "his recest victory over the Emperor" was changed to
"his recent victory over the Emperor", and "I shall take a rest till
them" was changed to "I shall take a rest till then".

In Chapter XIX, "I have found one of your occomplices" was changed to "I
have found one of your accomplices", a quotation mark was added after
"went down to the south to die", and "telling him of your inplacable
determination" was changed to "telling him of your implacable
determination".





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Woman of Mystery" ***

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