"Are you sure?"
"We separated at the Carrefour du Grand-Chêne. M. Morestal and papa went on by themselves. Philippe came straight back."
"No, he can't have come straight back, or he would be here now," said Marthe. "What can he have been doing all night? He has not even set foot in his room!"
But Mme. Morestal was terrified by what Suzanne had said. She could now no longer doubt that her husband had taken the frontier-road; and the shots had come from the frontier!
"Yes, that's true," said Suzanne, "but it was only ten o'clock when we started from Saint-Élophe and the shots which you heard were fired at one or two o'clock in the morning.... You said so yourself."
"How can I tell?" cried the old lady, who was beginning to lose her head entirely. "It may have been much earlier."
"But your father must know," said Marthe to Suzanne. "Did he tell you nothing?"
"I have not seen my father this morning," said Suzanne. "He was not awake...."
She had not time to finish her sentence before an idea burst in upon her, an idea so natural that the two other women were struck by it also and none of them dared put it into words.
Suzanne flew to the door, but Marthe held her back. Why not telephone to Saint-Élophe, to the special commissary's house?