Paul was no longer listening. He merely said to himself:
"M. d'Andeville is here. . . . M. d'Andeville, the Comtesse Hermine's husband. He must know, surely. Is she alive or dead? Or has he been the dupe of a scheming woman to the end and does he still bear a loving recollection of one who has vanished from his life? But no, that's incredible, because there is that photograph, taken four years later and sent to him: sent to him from Berlin! So he knows; and then . . . ?"
Paul was greatly perplexed. The revelations made by Karl the spy had suddenly revealed M. d'Andeville in a startling light. And now circumstances were bringing M. d'Andeville into Paul's presence, at the very time when Major Hermann had been captured.
Paul turned towards the attic. The major was lying motionless, with his face against the wall.
"Your father has remained outside?" Paul asked his brother-in-law.
"Yes, he took the bicycle of a man who was riding near us and who was slightly wounded. Papa is seeing to him."
"Go and fetch him; and, if the lieutenant doesn't object . . ."
He was interrupted by the bursting of a shrapnel shell the bullets of which riddled the sandbags heaped up in the front of them. The day was breaking. They could see an enemy column looming out of the darkness a mile away at most.
"Ready there!" shouted the lieutenant from below. "Don't fire a shot till I give the order. No one to show himself!"
It was not until a quarter of an hour later and then only for four or five minutes that Paul and M. d'Andeville were able to exchange a few words. Their conversation, moreover, was so greatly hurried that Paul had no time to decide what attitude he should take up in the presence of Élisabeth's father. The tragedy of the past, the part which the Comtesse Hermine's husband played in that tragedy: all this was mingled in his mind with the defense of the block-house. And, in spite of their great liking for each other, their greeting was somewhat absent and distracted.