"You know who I am?... And you were there just now?... You heard what I was saying ...?"
Rénine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:
"You are Rose Andrée, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you ... to Le Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."
She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh:
"What is all this? I have not been to Le Havre. I came straight here. Abducted? Imprisoned? What nonsense!"
"Yes, imprisoned, in the same cave as the Happy Princess; and you broke off some branches to the right of the cave."
"But how absurd! Who would have abducted me? I have no enemy."
"There is a man in love with you: the one whom you were expecting just now."
"Yes, my lover," she said, proudly. "Have I not the right to receive whom I like?"
"You have the right; you are a free agent. But the man who comes to see you every evening is wanted by the police. His name is Georges Dalbrèque. He killed Bourguet the jeweller."