of my steps. They had stopped under the vacillating light of a gas
jet and appeared to be both bending over a paper held by Mademoiselle
Stangerson, reading something which deeply interested them. I stopped in
the darkness and silence.

"Neither of them saw me, and I distinctly heard Mademoiselle Stangerson
repeat, as she was refolding the paper: 'The presbytery has lost nothing
of its charm, nor the garden its brightness!'--It was said in a tone at
once mocking and despairing, and was followed by a burst of such nervous
laughter that I think her words will never cease to sound in my ears.
But another phrase was uttered by Monsieur Robert Darzac: 'Must I commit
a crime, then, to win you?' He was in an extraordinarily agitated state.
He took the hand of Mademoiselle Stangerson and held it for a long time
to his lips, and I thought, from the movement of his shoulders, that he
was crying. Then they went away.

"When I returned to the great gallery," continued Rouletabille, "I saw
no more of Monsieur Robert Darzac, and I was not to see him again until
after the tragedy at the Glandier. Mademoiselle was near Mr. Rance,
who was talking with much animation, his eyes, during the conversation,
glowing with a singular brightness. Mademoiselle Stangerson, I thought,
was not even listening to what he was saying, her face expressing
perfect indifference. His face was the red face of a drunkard. When
Monsieur and Mademoiselle Stangerson left, he went to the bar and
remained there. I joined him, and rendered him some little service
in the midst of the pressing crowd. He thanked me and told me he was
returning to America three days later, that is to say, on the 26th (the
day after the crime). I talked with him about Philadelphia; he told me
he had lived there for five-and-twenty years, and that it was there he
had met the illustrious Professor Stangerson and his daughter. He drank
a great deal of champagne, and when I left him he was very nearly drunk.

"Such were my experiences on that evening, and I leave you to imagine
what effect the news of the attempted murder of Mademoiselle Stangerson
produced on me,--with what force those words pronounced by Monsieur
Robert Darzac, 'Must I commit a crime, then, to win you?' recurred to
me. It was not this phrase, however, that I repeated to him, when we met
here at Glandier. The sentence of the presbytery and the bright garden
sufficed to open the gate of the chateau. If you ask me if I beli