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. elisabeth 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 rea.s.sured, 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 elisabeth, of whom circ.u.mstances 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 elisabeth, 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 elisabeth?"

"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.

elisabeth 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 elisabeth was standing in front of her.

But how was so disastrous an event possible? elisabeth, whom three days before she had left in Karl's hands; elisabeth, 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: elisabeth was here! She had escaped Karl in less than three days! She had fled from Hildensheim Castle and pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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.

elisabeth 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 pa.s.ses 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 ingrat.i.tude, 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-j.a.panese war, you were in j.a.pan. You were everywhere: at Vienna, when the Crown Prince Rudolph was a.s.sa.s.sinated; at Belgrade when King Alexander and Queen Draga were a.s.sa.s.sinated. 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 Chateau 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 ebrecourt 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 Chateau 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 chateau was put up for sale and, strange to say, without the least advertis.e.m.e.nt, secretly, so to speak. Now what happened was that the man of business whom you had instructed bungled the matter so badly that the chateau 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 ebrecourt. 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! . . ."