Benjamin Prévotelle's voice suddenly died away. I was clearly aware of the insuperable distance that separated him from me at the very moment when I was about to learn the miraculous truth which he in his turn laid claim to have discovered.
I waited anxiously. A few minutes passed. Twice the telephone-bell rang without my receiving any call. I decided to go away and had reached the bottom of the stairs when I was summoned back in a hurry. Some one was asking for me on the wire.
"Some one!" I said, going upstairs again. "But it must be the same person."
And I at once took up the receiver:
"Are you there? Is that M. Prévotelle?"
At first I heard only my name, uttered in a very faint, indistinct voice, a woman's voice:
"Victorien. . . . Victorien. . . ."
"Hullo!" I cried, very excitedly, though I did not yet understand. "Hullo! . . . Yes, it's I, Victorien Beaugrand. I happened to be at the telephone. . . . Hullo! . . . Who is it speaking?"
For a few seconds the voice sounded nearer and then seemed to fall away. After that came perfect silence. But I had caught these few words:
"Help, Victorien! . . . My father's life is in danger: help! . . . Come to the Blue Lion at Bougival. . . ."