"Oh, what an uproar! I've telephoned to town.... They're talking of nothing else.... And who do you think swooped down upon me at Saint-Elophe? Quite half-a-dozen reporters! I sent them away with a flea in their ears! A set of fellows who make mischief wherever they go and who arrange everything as it suits them!... They're the scourge of our time!... I shall give Catherine formal orders that no one is to be admitted to the Old Mill.... Why, did you see how they report my escape? I'm supposed to have strangled the sentry and to have made a couple of Uhlans who pursued me bite the dust!..." He could not succeed in concealing his satisfaction and drew himself to his full height, like a man who sees nothing astonishing in an exploit of that kind. Philippe asked. "And what is the general feeling?" "Just what the papers say. Jorance's release is imminent. I told you as much. The more we assert ourselves, as we have every right to do, the sooner the thing will be over. You must understand that friend Jorance is being examined at this moment and that he is giving exactly the same replies that I did. So you see!... No, once more, Germany will give way. It is only a question of a day or two. So don't upset yourself, my boy, since you're so afraid of war ... and the responsibilities attaching to it!..." This, when all was said and done, was the motive to which he, like Marthe, ascribed the incoherent words which Philippe had uttered previous to his appearance before the magistrates; and, without going deeper into the matter, it gave him, on his side, a certain sense of anger, mingled with a mild contempt. Philippe Morestal, old Morestal's son, afraid of war! He was one more corrupted by the Paris poison!... Lunch was very lively. The old man never ceased talking. His good-humour, his optimism, his steady belief in a favourable and immediate solution overcame every resistance; and Philippe himself was glad to share a conviction that delighted him. * * * The afternoon was continued under equally propitious auspices. Morestal and Philippe were sent for to the frontier, where, in the presence of the public prosecutor, the sub-prefect, the sergeant of gendarmes and a number of journalists whom they tried in vain to send away, the examining-magistrate carefully completed the investigations which he had begun the day before. Morestal had to repeat the story of the aggression on the spot where it occurred, to point definitely to the road followed before the attack and during the flight, to fix the place where Private Baufeld had crossed the frontier-line and the place where the commissary and himself were arrested.