"_Excellenz_, one must always look facts in the face. What has been your constant object with regard to Paul Delroze? To conceal from him the truth as to your identity and therefore to turn his attention, his enquiries, his hatred, towards Major Hermann. That's so, is it not? You went to the length of multiplying the number of daggers engraved with the letters H, E, R, M and even of signing 'Major Hermann' on the panel where the famous portrait hung. In fact, you took every precaution, so that, when you think fit to kill off Major Hermann, Paul Delroze will believe his enemy to be dead and will cease to think of you. And now what happens? Why, in that photograph he possesses the most certain proof of the connection between Major Hermann and the famous portrait which he saw on the evening of his marriage, that is to say, between the present and the past." "True; but this photograph, found on the body of some dead soldier, would have no importance in his eyes unless he knew where it came from, for instance, if he could see his father-in-law." "His father-in-law is fighting with the British army within eight miles of Paul Delroze." "Do they know it?" "No, but an accident may bring them together. Moreover, Bernard and his father correspond; and Bernard must have told his father what happened at the Château d'Ornequin, at least in so far as Paul Delroze was able to piece the incidents together." "Well, what does that matter, so long as they know nothing of the other events? And that's the main thing. They could discover all our secrets through Élisabeth and find out who I am. But they won't look for her, because they believe her to be dead." "Are you sure of that, _Excellenz_?" "What's that?" The two accomplices were standing close together, looking into each other's eyes, the major uneasy and irritated, the spy cunning. "Speak," said the major. "What do you want to say?" "Just this, _Excellenz_, that just now I was able to put my hand on Delroze's kit-bag. Not for long: two seconds, that's all; but long enough to see two things. . . ." "Hurry up, can't you?" "First, the loose leaves of that manuscript of which you took care to burn the more important papers, but of which, unfortunately, you mislaid a considerable part." "His wife's diary?" "Yes." The major burst into an oath: "May I be damned for everlasting! One should burn everything in those cases. Oh, if I hadn't indulged that foolish curiosity! . . . And next?" "Oh, hardly anything, _Excellenz_! A bit of a shell, yes, a little bit of a shell; but I must say that it looked to me very like the splinter which you ordered me to drive into the wall of the lodge, after sticking some of Élisabeth's hair to it. What do you think of that, _Excellenz_?" The major stamped his foot with anger and let fly a new string of oaths and anathemas at the head of Paul Delroze. "What do you think of that?" repeated the spy.