"He was reckoning on the assistance of the car, wasn't he?"
[Pg 113]"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 Jerome'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 Elisabeth'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 chateau! Elisabeth 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[Pg 114] 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 Chateau 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 chateau.
"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 chateau; 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 chateau. The major had made all the arrangements beforehand."
"What was the major's name?"
"I don't know. He was walking about with a[Pg 115] 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 chateau 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: Elisabeth 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, Elisabeth's mother!
He went on, in a trembling voice:
[Pg 116]"So there were three people shot? You're quite sure?"
"Yes, the people of the chateau. 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 chateau 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[Pg 117] 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 Elisabeth 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…"
[Pg 118]"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 chateau. But there was no clue to reveal to them where Elisabeth's body lay hidden.
At five o'clock, they gave Rosalie and Jerome 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[Pg 119] image which had now become inseparable from his recollections of the Comtesse d'Andeville.