For two hours after lunch he remained closeted with the portrait in the boudoir: a tragic interview which he wished to have with the murderess, so as to fill his eyes with her accursed image and give fresh strength to his memories. He examined every slightest detail. He studied the cameo, the swan with unfurled wings which it represented, the chasing of the gold snake that formed the setting, the position of the rubies and also the draping of the lace around the shoulders, not to speak of the shape of the mouth and the color of the hair and the outline of the face.
It was undoubtedly the woman whom he had seen that September evening. A corner of the picture bore the painter's signature; and underneath, on the frame, was a scroll with the inscription:
No doubt the portrait had been exhibited with that discreet reference to the Comtesse Hermine.
"Now, then," said Paul. "A few minutes more, and the whole past will come to life again. I have found the criminal; I have now only to find the place of the crime. If the chapel is there, in the woods, the truth will be complete."
He went for the truth resolutely. He feared it less now, because it could no longer escape his grasp. And yet how his heart beat, with great, painful throbs, and how he loathed the idea of taking the road leading to that other road along which his father had passed sixteen years before!
A vague movement of Jérôme's hand had told him which way to go. He crossed the park in the direction of the frontier, bearing to his left and passing a lodge. At the entrance to the woods was a long avenue of fir-trees down which he went. Four hundred yards farther it branched into three narrow avenues. Two of these proved to end in impenetrable thickets. The third led to the top of a mound, from which he descended, still keeping to his left, by another avenue of fir-trees.
In selecting this road, Paul realized that it was just this avenue of firs the appearance of which aroused in him, through some untold resemblance of shape and arrangement, memories clear enough to guide his steps. It ran straight ahead for some time and then took a sudden turn into a cluster of tall beeches whose leafy tops met overhead. Then the road sloped upwards; and, at the end of the dark tunnel through which he was walking, Paul perceived the glare of light that points to an open space.
The anguish of it all made his knees give way beneath him; and he had to make an effort to proceed. Was it the glade in which his father had received his death-blow? The more that luminous space became revealed to his eyes, the more did he feel penetrated with a profound conviction. As in the room with the portrait, the past was recovering the very aspect of the truth in and before him.
It was the same glade, surrounded by a ring of trees that presented the same picture and covered with a carpet of grass and moss which the same paths divided as of old. The same glimpse of sky was above him, outlined by the capricious masses of foliage. And there, on his left, guarded by two yew-trees which Paul recognized, was the chapel.
The chapel! The little old massive chapel, whose lines had etched themselves like furrows into his brain! Trees grow, become taller, alter their form. The appearance of a glade is liable to change. Its paths will sometimes interlock in a different fashion. A man's memory can play him a trick. But a building of granite and cement is immutable. It takes centuries to give it the green-gray color that is the mark which time sets upon the stone; and this bloom of age never alters. The chapel that stood there, displaying a grimy-paned rose-window in its east front, was undoubtedly that from which the German Emperor had stepped, followed by the woman who, ten minutes later, committed the murder.
Paul walked to the door. He wanted to revisit the place in which his father had spoken to him for the last time. It was a moment of tense emotion. The same little roof which had sheltered their bicycles projected at the back; and the door was the same, with its great rusty clamps and bars.
He stood on the single step that led to it, raised the latch and pushed the door. But as he was about to enter, two men, hidden in the shadow on either side, sprang at him.
One of them aimed a revolver full in his face. By some miracle, Paul noticed the gleaming barrel of the weapon just in time to stoop before the bullet could strike him. A second shot rang out, but he had hustled the man and now snatched the revolver from his hand, while his other aggressor threatened him with a dagger. He stepped backwards out of the chapel, with outstretched arm, and twice pulled the trigger. Each time there was a click but no shot. The mere fact, however, of his firing at the two scoundrels terrified them, and they turned tail and made off as fast as they could.
Bewildered by the suddenness of the attack, Paul stood for a second irresolute. Then he fired at the fugitives again, but to no purpose. The revolver, which was obviously loaded in only two chambers, clicked but did not go off.
He then started running after his assailants; and he remembered that long ago the Emperor and his companion, on leaving the chapel, had taken the same direction, which was evidently that of the frontier.
Almost at the same moment the men, seeing themselves pursued, plunged into the wood and slipped in among the trees; but Paul, who was swifter of foot, rapidly gained ground on them, all the more so as he had gone round a hollow filled with bracken and brambles into which the others had ventured.
Suddenly one of them gave a shrill whistle, probably a warning to some accomplice. Soon after they disappeared behind a line of extremely dense bushes. When he had passed through these, Paul saw at a distance of sixty yards before him a high wall which seemed to shut in the woods on every side. The men were half-way to it; and he perceived that they were making straight for a part of the wall containing a small door.
Paul put on a spurt so as to reach the door before they had time to open it. The bare ground enabled him to increase his speed, whereas the men, who were obviously tired, had reduced theirs.
"I've got them, the ruffians!" he murmured. "I shall at last know."
A second whistle sounded, followed by a guttural shout. He was now within twenty yards of them and could hear them speak.
"I've got them, I've got them!" he repeated, with fierce delight.
And he made up his mind to strike one of them in the face with the barrel of his revolver and to spring at the other's throat.
But, before they even reached the wall, the door was pushed open from the outside and a third man appeared and let them through.
Paul flung away the revolver; and his impetus was such and the effort which he made so great that he managed to seize the door and draw it to him.
The door gave way. And what he then saw scared him to such a degree that he started backwards and did not even dream of defending himself against this fresh attack. The third man – Oh, hideous nightmare! Could it moreover be anything but a nightmare? – the third ruffian was raising a knife against him; and Paul knew his face.. it was a face resembling the one which he had seen before, a man's face and not a woman's, but the same sort of face, undoubtedly the same sort: a face marked by fifteen additional years and by an even harder and more wicked expression, but the same sort of face, the same sort!
And the man stabbed Paul, even as the woman of fifteen years ago, even as she who was since dead had stabbed Paul's father.
Paul Delroze staggered, but rather as the result of the nervous shock caused by the sudden appearance of this ghost of the past; for the blade of the dagger, striking the button on the shoulder-strap of his shooting-jacket, broke into splinters. Dazed and misty-eyed, he heard the sound of the door closing, the grating of the key in the lock and lastly the hum of a motor car starting on the other side of the wall. When Paul recovered from his torpor there was nothing left for him to do. The man and his two confederates were out of reach.
Besides, for the moment he was utterly absorbed in the mystery of the likeness between the figure from the past and that which he had just seen. He could think of but one thing:
"The Comtesse d'Andeville is dead; and here she is revived under the aspect of a man whose face is the very face which she would have to-day. Is it