It was true--all true--and yet when I ordered my restless heart to be quiet and listen to reason, I knew that my hypothesis was absurd. Absurd? Why? Look at him there, the ghost of Larsan which strides along with long paces like those of the monster! Yes, but the shoulders are those of Darzac. I say absurd because anyone who was not Darzac might have passed for him in the shade and the mystery that surrounded the drama of the Glandier. But here we have lived with the man. We have talked with him--touched him. We have lived with him? No! To begin with, he was rarely there among us. Always locked in his own room or bending over that useless work in the Tower of the Bold. A fine pretext, that of drawing, to prevent anyone’s seeing your face and to make it appear natural to answer questions without turning the head! But he was not drawing all the time! Yes, but at other times, always, except to-night, he wore his dark glasses. Ah! that accident in the laboratory had been well contrived. That little lamp which exploded knew--I have always thought so, it seems to me--the service which it was going to do for Larsan when Larsan should have taken the place of Darzac. It permitted him to evade always and everywhere the full light of day--because of the weakness of his eyes. How then! Was it not always Mlle. Stangerson or Rouletabille who had managed to find dark corners where M. Darzac’s eyes could not be exposed to the sun? But, lately, he himself, more than anyone else now that I reflected upon it, had been careful to keep in the shadow--we have seen him seldom and always in the shadow. That little “hall of counsel” was very dark, “la Louve” was dark, and he had chosen the two rooms in the Square Tower which are plunged in semi-darkness. But still--still--Rouletabille could not be deceived like that--even for three days. But, as the lad himself said, Larsan was born before Rouletabille and was his father. And suddenly there recurred to my mind the first act of Darzac when he came to meet us at Cannes and entered our compartment with us. He drew the curtain. The shadow--always the shadow! The figure on the western boulevard is still standing there. I can look him full in the face. No spectacles now! He was not moving. He stood as if he were posing for a photograph. Do not stir! There! that is he! Yes, it is Robert Darzac--only Robert Darzac! He began to walk again--I was certain no longer. There is something in his walk which is not Darzac’s--something in which I seem to recognize Larsan--but what? Yes, Rouletabille must have seen! And yet--Rouletabille reasons more often than he looks! And has he ever had a chance to look at him like this?