This time it was Paul who, slowly and carefully, slipped the barrel of his revolver into one of the breaches. He could no longer doubt, after Karl's revelations, that the major had killed his father. It was that creature whom he had seen, dagger in hand, on that tragic evening, that creature and none other! And the creature's accomplice of to-day was the accomplice of the earlier occasion, the satellite who had tried to kill Paul while his father was dying. Bernard, seeing what Paul did, whispered in his ear: "So you have made up your mind? We're to shoot him down?" "Wait till I give the signal," answered Paul. "But don't you fire at him, aim at the spy." In spite of everything, he was thinking of the inexplicable mystery of the bonds connecting Major Hermann with Bernard d'Andeville and his sister Élisabeth and he could not allow Bernard to be the one to carry out the act of justice. He himself hesitated, as one hesitates before performing an action of which one does not realize the full scope. Who was that scoundrel? What identity was Paul to ascribe to him? To-day, Major Hermann and chief of the German secret service; yesterday, Prince Conrad's boon companion, all-powerful at the Château d'Ornequin, disguising himself as a peasant-woman and prowling through Corvigny; long before that, an assassin, the Emperor's accomplice . . . and the lady of Ornequin: which of all these personalities, which were but different aspects of one and the same being, was the real one? Paul looked at the major in bewilderment, as he had looked at the photograph and, in the locked room, at the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville. Hermann, Hermine! In his mind the two names became merged into one. And he noticed the daintiness of the hands, white and small as a woman's hands. The tapering fingers were decked with rings set with precious stones. The booted feet, too, were delicately formed. The colorless face showed not a trace of hair. But all this effeminate appearance was belied by the grating sound of a hoarse voice, by heaviness of gait and movement and by a sort of barbarous strength. The major put his hands before his face and reflected for a few minutes. Karl watched him with a certain air of pity and seemed to be asking himself whether his master was not beginning to feel some kind of remorse at the thought of the crimes which he had committed. But the major threw off his torpor and, in a hardly audible voice, quivering with nothing but hatred, said: "On their heads be it, Karl! On their heads be it for trying to get in our path! I put away the father and I did well. One day it will be the son's turn. And now . . . now we have the girl to see to." "Shall I take charge of that, _Excellenz_?"