"To work!" he said, firmly.
He returned to the chalet in a very calm frame of mind, went to his room, climbed on a stool, and cut the rope by which Pierre Leduc was hanging:
"You poor devil!" he said. "You were doomed to end like that, with a hempen tie around your neck. Alas, you were not made for greatness: I ought to have foreseen that and not hooked my fortune to a rhymester!"
He felt in the young man's clothes and found nothing. But, remembering Dolores' second pocket-book, he took it from the pocket where he had left it.
He gave a start of surprise. The pocket-book contained a bundle of letters whose appearance was familiar to him; and he at once recognized the different writings.
"The Emperor's letters!" he muttered, slowly. "The old chancellor's letters! The whole bundle which I myself found at Leon Massier's and which I handed to Count von Waldemar! . . . How did it happen? . . . Did she take them in her turn from that blockhead of a Waldemar?" And, suddenly, slapping his forehead, "Why, no, the blockhead is myself. These are the real letters! She kept them to blackmail the Emperor when the time came. And the others, the ones which I handed over, are copies, forged by herself, of course, or by an accomplice, and placed where she knew that I should find them. . . . And I played her game for her, like a mug! By Jove, when women begin to interfere . . . !"
There was only a piece of pasteboard left in the pocket-book, a photograph. He looked at it. It was his own.
"Two photographs . . . Massier and I . . . the two she loved best, no doubt . . . For she loved me. . . . A strange love, built up of admiration for the adventurer that I am, for the man who, by himself, put away the seven scoundrels whom she had paid to break my head! A strange love! I felt it throbbing in her the other day, when I told her my great dream of omnipotence. Then, really, she had the idea of sacrificing Pierre Leduc and subjecting her dream to mine. If the incident of the mirror had not taken place, she would have been subdued. But she was afraid. I had my hand upon the truth. My death was necessary for her salvation and she decided upon it." He repeated several times, pensively, "And yet she loved me. . . . Yes, she loved me, as others have loved me . . . others to whom I have brought ill-luck also. . . . Alas, all those who love me die! . . . And this one died too, strangled by my hand. . . . What is the use of living? . . . What is the use of living?" he asked again, in a low voice. "Is it not better to join them, all those women who have loved me . . . and who have died of their love . . . Sonia, Raymonde, Clotilde, Destange, Miss Clarke? . . ."
He laid the two corpses beside each other, covered them with the same sheet, sat down at a table and wrote:
"I have triumphed over everything and I am beaten. I have reached the goal and I have fallen. Fate is too strong for me. . . . And she whom I loved is no more. I shall die also."