His efforts were useless; and Paul knew that they were bound to be so. Élisabeth must have attached far too much value to those pages not to have either destroyed them or hidden them beyond the possibility of discovery. Unless: "Unless," he said to himself, "they have been stolen from her. The major must have kept a constant watch upon her. And, in that case, who knows?" An idea occurred to Paul's mind. After finding the peasant-woman's clothes and black lace scarf, he had left them on the bed, attaching no further importance to them; and he now asked himself if the major, on the night when he had murdered the two soldiers, had not come with the intention of fetching away the clothes, or at least the contents of their pockets, which he had not been able to do because they were hidden under Private Gériflour, who was sleeping on the top of them. Now Paul seemed to remember that, when unfolding that peasant's skirt and bodice, he had noticed a rustling of paper in one of the pockets. Was it not reasonable to conclude that this was Élisabeth's diary, which had been discovered and stolen by Major Hermann? Paul hastened to the room in which the murders had been committed, snatched up the clothes and looked through them: "Ah," he at once exclaimed, with genuine delight, "here they are!" There was a large, yellow envelope filled with the pages removed from the diary. These were crumpled and here and there torn; and Paul saw at a glance that the pages corresponded only with the months of August and September and that even some days in each of these months were missing. And he saw Élisabeth's handwriting. It was not a full or detailed diary. It consisted merely of notes, poor little notes in which a bruised heart found an outlet. At times, when they ran to greater length, an extra page had been added. The notes had been jotted down by day or night, anyhow, in ink and pencil; they were sometimes hardly legible; and they gave the impression of a trembling hand, of eyes veiled with tears and of a mind crazed with suffering. Paul was moved to the very depths of his being. He was alone and he read: "_Sunday, 2 August._ "He ought not to have written me that letter. It is too cruel. And why does he suggest that I should leave Ornequin? The war? Does he think that, because there is a chance of war, I shall not have the courage to stay here and do my duty? How little he knows me! Then he must either think me a coward or believe me capable of suspecting my poor mother! . . . Paul, dear Paul, you ought not to have left me. . . . "_Monday, 3 August._ "Jérôme and Rosalie have been kinder and more thoughtful than ever, now that the servants are gone. Rosalie begged and prayed that I should go away, too. "'And what about yourselves, Rosalie?' I said. 'Will you go?'