. One might have taken her to be a
ghost--a lovely phantom. Her father took her in his arms and kissed her
passionately, as if he had recovered her after being long lost to him.
I dared not question her. He drew her into the room and we followed
them,--for we had to know!--The door of the boudoir was open. The
terrified faces of the two nurses craned towards us. Mademoiselle
Stangerson inquired the meaning of all the disturbance. That she was
not in her own room was quite easily explained--quite easily. She had
a fancy not to sleep that night in her chamber, but in the boudoir with
her nurses, locking the door on them. Since the night of the crime she
had experienced feelings of terror, and fears came over her that are
easily to be comprehended.

"But who could imagine that on that particular night when he was to
come, she would, by a mere chance, determine to shut herself in with her
women? Who would think that she would act contrary to her father's wish
to sleep in the drawing-room? Who could believe that the letter which
had so recently been on the table in her room would no longer be there?
He who could understand all this, would have to assume that Mademoiselle
Stangerson knew that the murderer was coming--she could not prevent
his coming again--unknown to her father, unknown to all but to Monsieur
Robert Darzac. For he must know it now--perhaps he had known it before!
Did he remember that phrase in the Elysee garden: 'Must I commit a
crime, then, to win you?' Against whom the crime, if not against the
obstacle, against the murderer? 'Ah, I would kill him with my own hand!'
And I replied, 'You have not answered my question.' That was the very
truth. In truth, in truth, Monsieur Darzac knew the murderer so well
that--while wishing to kill him himself--he was afraid I should find
him. There could be but two reasons why he had assisted me in my
investigation. First, because I forced him to do it; and, second,
because she would be the better protected.

"I am in the chamber--her room. I look at her, also at the place where
the letter had just now been. She has possessed herself of it; it was
evidently intended for her--evidently. How she trembles!--Trembles at
the strange story her father is telling her, of the presence of the
murderer in her chamber, and of the pursuit. But it is plainly to be
seen that she is not wholly satisfied by the assurance given her until
she had been told that the murderer, by some incompreh