"I have done but my duty and pleasure, for I know who you are, M. Germain."
"You know me?"
"A little, my boy; I talk to you like a father," said the Slasher, resuming his tone of habitual carelessness; "and you would be very wrong to place my arrival at La Force on the back of chance. If I had not known you, I should not have been here."
Germain looked at the Slasher with the utmost surprise.
"How, because you knew me—-"
"I am here a prisoner in La Force."
"I wish to believe you, but—-"
"But you do not believe me."
"I wish to say that it is impossible for me to comprehend how it can be that I have anything to do with your imprisonment."
"Have anything to do? You have everything."