“I may give you that,” said Freyberger quite simply. They were standing opposite to one another. Mademoiselle Lefarge sank down on a fauteuil near by and motioned the detective to take a chair. “I must tell you first,” said he, taking a seat close to her, “that a terrible crime has been committed in England, a crime almost exactly similar to that which was committed in the Rue de Turbigo eight years ago.” “Ah!” “We are investigating that crime, we believe the active agent in it to be the active agent in the crime of the Rue de Turbigo. If we can prove this incontrovertibly by the capture of the active agent for whom we are seeking, your father’s name will be quite cleared of any imputation.” Cécile Lefarge sighed deeply. She sat with her hands clasped across one knee and her eyes fixed upon the man before her. She divined, in this plain, clean-shaved, fresh-coloured and youngish-looking man, whose face might have been that of a café waiter, whose manner was yet so calm and authoritative and assured, and whose eye was so full of steadfastness and energy, she divined in this person the man for whom she had been seeking for years—her avenger. “Go on, please,” she said. “I must first,” said Freyberger, taking a parcel from his pocket, “ask you to look at this.” He handed a photograph to the girl. She looked at it and gave a short, sharp cry, as though some one had struck her. “Müller!” she said, holding the thing away from her with a gesture of terror. Freyberger took it and replaced it in his pocket after Hellier had glanced at it. “You recognize it as the portrait—” “Of the man who executed the bust of my father. Oh, yes, indeed, I recognize it. His face is burnt upon my brain. Were I to live a thousand years, it would be there still.” “Now,” said Freyberger, “I do not wish to pain you, yet I must say some unpleasant things. You know that in the eyes of the world at the time of this affair, M. Lefarge appeared guilty.” “Alas!” said she, “in the eyes of the world my dear father must appear as guilty as he did then.” “You know the terrible mass of evidence that was produced against him?” “Yes.” “You have weighed it logically yourself?” “Yes.” “Have you ever believed your father to have been guilty of the crime imputed to him?” “Never.” “Have you any special reason for this disbelief?” “No.” “Yet—” “Yet I know him to have been innocent. Ah, M. Freyberger! logic is not everything in this world, instinct with some people counts for much more. I know my dear father to have been innocent, and you ask me how I know it. I can only answer, ‘how do I know that the sun shines,’ the thing is plain before me, and we will not speak of it again.” “We will speak, then, of this man, Müller. He impressed you.” She looked around as if seeking for a metaphor. “He impressed me with horror, he filled me with the terror of a nightmare.” “You saw him several times?”