The silence which followed this dramatic and lucid explanation was appalling. We all of us felt grieved for the illustrious professor, so driven into a corner by the pitiless logic of Frédéric Larsan, so forced to confess the whole truth of his martyrdom or to keep silent, and thus make a yet more terrible admission. The man himself, a veritable statue of sorrow, raised his hand with a gesture so solemn that we bowed our heads to it as before something sacred. He then pronounced these words, in a voice so loud that it seemed to exhaust him:— “I swear by the head of my suffering child that I never for an instant left the door of her chamber after hearing her cries for help; that that door was not opened while I was alone in the laboratory; and that, finally, when we entered The Yellow Room, my three domestics and I, the murderer was no longer there! I swear I do not know the murderer!” Must I say it,—in spite of the solemnity of Monsieur Stangerson’s words, we did not believe in his denial? Frédéric Larsan had shown us the truth and it was not so easily given up. Monsieur de Marquet announced that the conversation was at an end, and as we were about to leave the laboratory, Joseph Rouletabille approached Monsieur Stangerson, took him by the hand with the greatest respect, and I heard him say:— “_I_ believe you, Monsieur.” I here close the citation which I have thought it my duty to make from Monsieur Maleine’s narrative. I need not tell the reader that all that passed in the laboratory was immediately and faithfully reported to me by Rouletabille. Chapter XII Frédéric Larsan’s Cane It was not till six o’clock that I left the château, taking with me the article hastily written by my friend in the little sitting-room which Monsieur Robert Darzac had placed at our disposal. The reporter was to sleep at the château, taking advantage of the to me inexplicable hospitality offered him by Monsieur Robert Darzac, to whom Monsieur Stangerson, in that sad time, left the care of all his domestic affairs. Nevertheless he insisted on accompanying me to the station at Epinay. In crossing the park, he said to me:—