And then, at a certain moment, he thought he saw Pierre's profile as some one crossed the garden of the hotel. This time he could resist no longer. He felt compelled to go down and question the concierge. He learned that Pierre had just gone out. A few minutes later he himself took the direction of the Villa Helmholtz. He recognized his friend and followed him. He saw him turn, listen, and go on again. Just as Pierre was entering the garden, Olivier could not help making a step forward. It was at this moment that Pierre heard him. Olivier drew back into the darkness. His friend passed quite close to him. Indeed, he almost touched him, and then began to run, most probably toward another entrance with which he was familiar, and Olivier ceased to follow him. He sank down on the slope and gave way to unutterable despair, in which were reunited and collected all the sorrow and suffering he had gone through during the last two weeks. He knew that at that very minute, in the silent house so near him, Ely and Pierre were together. He knew that they had forgiven each other, that they loved each other. And the thought caused him a pang of agony so keen that he could not move. He almost fainted under the emotions caused by his passionate love for this woman and the sentiment that his friend, a friend so dear to him, had trampled him under foot on his way to her, mingled with the tortures of jealousy and the bitterness of betrayal. He ended by flinging himself, face downward, upon the cold earth, the gentle earth that takes us all into her embrace one day, whose weight, while crushing us down, also crushes out the intolerable sufferings of our heart. There he lay, his arms extended, his face buried in the grass, like a corpse, longing for death, longing to be free, longing to love this woman no more, to never again see his friend, to have finished with existence, to sleep the sleep that is without dreams, without memory, a sleep in which Ely and Pierre and himself would seem as though they had never been. How long did he remain thus, face to the ground, a prey to the complete, irremediable sorrow which ends by calming the heart through its very intensity? A sound of voices behind the hedge which separated him from the garden aroused him abruptly from the paroxysm of suffering which had overwhelmed him. They came from some men walking without a light, measuring their steps, speaking in muffled tones. They came so close to Olivier that he could have touched them if he had risen to his feet. "He entered here, and went out again by this place the other nights that he came, monseigneur," said one of the voices, a whispering, insinuating, almost inaudible voice. "We cannot possibly miss him." "Are you certain that none of your men suspect the truth?" said another easily recognizable voice. "Not one, monseigneur. They think they have to do with a robber."