Vibray had failed in her attempt to persuade
Therese to come with her to Querelles to sleep. Therese was determined
in her refusal to leave the chateau and what she termed her "post of
duty."

"Marie will stay with me," she assured the kind Baronne, "and I promise
you I shall have sufficient courage to go to sleep to-night."

So her friend got into her car alone at nine o'clock and went back to
her own house, and Therese went up at once to bed with Marie, the
faithful servant who, like Louise the cook, had been with her ever since
she was born.

* * * * *

After having read all the newspapers, with their minute and often
inaccurate account of the tragedy at Beaulieu--for everyone in the
chateau had been besieged the previous day by reporters and
representatives of various press agencies--M. Etienne Rambert said to
his son simply, but with a marked gravity:

"Let us go upstairs, my son: it is time."

At the door of his room Charles deferentially offered his cheek to his
father, but M. Etienne Rambert seemed to hesitate; then, as if taking a
sudden resolution, he entered his son's room instead of going on to his
own. Charles kept silence and refrained from asking any questions, for
he had noticed how lost in sad thought his father had seemed to be since
the day before.

Charles Rambert was very tired. He began to undress at once. He had
taken off his coat and waistcoat, and was turning towards a
looking-glass to undo his tie, when his father came up to him; with an
abrupt movement M. Etienne Rambert put both his hands on his son's
shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. Then in a stifled but
peremptory tone he said:

"Now confess, unhappy boy! Confess to your father!"

Charles went ghastly white.

"What?" he muttered.

Etienne Rambert kept his eyes fixed upon him.

"It was you who committed the murder!"

The ringing denial that the young man tried to utter was strangled in
his throat; he threw out his arms and groped with his hands as if to
find something to support him in his faintness; then he pulled himself
together.

"Committed the murder? I? You accuse me of having killed the Marquise?
It is infamous, hateful, awful!"

"Alas, yes!"

"No, no! Good God, no!"

"Yes!" Etienne Rambert insisted.

The two men faced each other, panting. Charles controlled the emotion
which was sweeping over him once more, and looking steadily at his
father, said in tones of bit