I had reached the second floor. At one corner of the long corridor there was a notification that the numbers ran from 300 to 360. A waiter passed me, whistling; two girls were chattering and laughing in a kind of office at the stair-head; the various noises of the courtyard came up through the open windows. The moment was opportune for the execution of my project. With these people about the man could not hope to escape from the house. 345, 350, 351 353--I stood before the door of Edmond Termonde's room; the key was in the lock; chance had served my purpose better than I had ventured to hope. This trifling particular bore witness to the security in which the man whom I was about to surprise was living. Was he even aware that I existed? I paused a moment before the closed door. I wore a short coat, so as to have my revolver within easy reach in the pocket, and I put my right hand upon it, opened the door with my left, and entered without knocking. "Who is there?" said a man who was lying rather than sitting in an arm-chair, with his feet on a table; he was reading a newspaper and smoking, and his back was turned to the door. He did not trouble himself to rise and see whose hand had opened the door; thinking, no doubt, that a servant had come in, he merely turned his head slightly, and I did not give him time to look completely round. "M. Rochdale?" I asked. He started to his feet, pushed away the chair, and rushed to the other side of the table, staring at me with a terrified countenance; his light blue eyes were unnaturally distended, his face was livid, his mouth was half open, his logs bent under him. His tall, robust frame had sustained one of those shocks of excessive terror which almost paralyse the forces of life. He uttered but one word--Cornélis! At last I held in my victorious hand the proof that I had been seeking for months, and in that moment I was master of all the resources of my being. Yes, I was as calm, as clear of purpose as my adversary was the reverse. He was not accustomed to live, like his accomplice, in the daily habit of studied dissimulation. The name, "Rochdale," the terrifying likeness, the unlooked--for arrival! I had not been mistaken in my calculation. With the amazing rapidity of thought that accompanies action I perceived the necessity of following up this first shock of moral terror by a shock of physical terror. Otherwise, the man would hurl himself upon me, in the moment of reaction, thrust me aside and rush away like a madman, at the risk of being stopped on the stairs by the servants, and then? But I had already taken out my revolver, and I now covered the wretch with it, calling him by his real name, to prove that I knew all about him. "M. Edmond Termonde," I said, "if you make one step towards me, I will kill you, like an assassin as you are, as you killed my father." Pointing to a chair at the corner of the half-open window, I added: "Sit down!"