"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic, because he had fastened these shirt ropes of his to the iron bars of his bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been long in coming to release him from his agony." "Can I not see him?" asked Fandor. "Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone. "Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and entered: "A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur." "Tell her I am too busy." "She asked me to say that it is urgent." "Ask her name." "Here is her card, monsieur." Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started! "Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor girl? How am I to tell her?" Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears, rushed towards him: "Monsieur, where is my brother?" "But, mademoiselle!..." Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit down, Jerome Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room; he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview. "Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...." "Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!" "Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty." "But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear himself?" "Yes, yes, mademoiselle, he has vindicated himself, I even ..." Monsieur Fuselier stopped short, intensely pained, not knowing how to tell Elizabeth Dollon the terrible news. At once she cried: "Ah, monsieur, you hesitate! You have learned something fresh? You are on the track of the assassins?" "It is certain ... your brother is not guilty!" The poor girl's countenance suddenly brightened. She had passed a horrible night after her return to Paris, and the receipt of the wire from Police Headquarters. "What a nightmare!" she cried. "But the telegram said he was injured--nothing serious, is it?... Where is he now? Can I see him?" "Mademoiselle," said the magistrate, "your brother has had a terrible shock!... It would be better!... I fear that!..." Suddenly Elizabeth Dollon cried: "Oh, monsieur, how you said that! How can seeing me do him harm?" As Monsieur Fuselier did not reply, she burst into tears: "You are hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he also was a victim! Swear to me that he is not?" "But ..." "You _are_ hiding something from me!" The poor girl was frantic with terror: she wrung her hands in a state of despair: "Where is he? I must see him! Oh, take pity on me!" As she watched the magistrate's downcast look, his air of discomfiture, the horrid truth flashed on Elizabeth Dollon: "Dead!" she cried. She was shaken with sobs.