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 bitter reproach: "And it is actually my own father who says that--who suspects me!" Tears filled the young fellow's eyes and sobs choked him; he grew whiter still, and seemed so near collapse that his father had to support him to a chair, where he remained for several minutes utterly prostrated. M. Rambert paced up and down the room a few times, then took another chair and sat down in front of his son. Passing a hand across his brow as if to sweep away the horrible nightmare that was haunting him, he spoke again. "Come now, my boy, my poor boy, let us talk it over quietly. I do not know how it was, but yesterday morning when I saw you at the station I had a presentiment of something: you were haggard, and tired, and your eyes were drawn----" "I told you before," Charles answered tonelessly "that I had had a bad night: I was over-excited and did not sleep: I was awake the whole night." "By Jove, yes!" his father rapped out: "I can believe that! But if you were not asleep, how do you account for your not hearing anything?" "Thérèse did not hear anything either," said Charles after a moment's reflection. "Thérèse's room was a long way off," M. Rambert replied, "while there was only a thin wall between yours and that of the Marquise. You must have heard: you did hear! More than that----, oh, my boy, my unhappy boy!" Charles was twisting and untwisting his hands, and great drops of cold perspiration beaded his brow.