It was this which surged across the dark gulf of my thoughts, above the abyss of my memory; this impossibility of “a body too many.” And the horror which I found in my heart at my awakening was not confined to myself--far from it! All those who had mingled, near or far, in this strange drama of the Square Tower, shared it; and even though the horror of the event itself were appeased--the horror of the body in its last throes of agony thrown into a sack which a man carried off at night to cast it into who knows what far off and profound and mysterious tomb where it might gasp out its last breath of life--even if, I say, this horror should be forgotten and blotted out of the mind, and effaced from the vision, yet still the impossibility of this “body too many” grew and increased and rose up before us higher and higher and more threatening and more dreadful. Certain persons there are--like Mme. Edith, for example--who deny almost from habit, anything which they cannot understand--who deny the presentation of the problem which destiny holds for us (such as we have established in the preceding chapter) even while every event and every circumstance among those which had the Fort of Hercules for their theatre rendered proof of the exactitude of the presentation. First of all, the attack! How had the attack been made? At what moment? By what means of approach? What mines, trenches, covered paths, breaches--in the domains of the mental fortifications--have served the assailant and delivered the château over into his hands? Yes, under the existing conditions, where was the attack? The answer is--silence. And yet, the facts must be brought to light. Rouletabille has said so; he ought to know. In a siege as mysterious as this, the attack may be in everything or in nothing. The assailant is as still as the grave itself and the assault is made without clamor and the enemy approaches the walls walking in his stocking feet. The _attack_? It is, perhaps, in the very stillness itself, but again, it may, perhaps, be in the spoken word. It is in a tone, in a sigh, in a breath. It is in a gesture, but if perhaps it may be in all which is hidden, it may be, also, in all that is revealed--in _everything which one sees and which one does not see_. Eleven o’clock! Where was Rouletabille? His bed had not been disturbed. I dressed myself hurriedly and went to look for my friend, whom I found in the outer court. He took me by the arm and led me into the vast drawing room of “la Louve.” There, I was surprised to find, although it was not yet time for luncheon, everybody assembled. M. and Mme. Darzac were there. It seemed to me that M. Rance’s manner was rather frigid. When he shook my hand in wishing me good morning, he barely touched my fingers. As soon as we entered the room Mme. Edith, from the dark corner where she was reclining carelessly on a sofa, saluted us with the words: