The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:
"If Prince Conrad is alive he will be found."
"No, sir, he will not be found."
"There is not a place in Germany where my searching will fail to find him," he declared, striking the table with his fist.
"Prince Conrad is not in Germany, sir."
"Eh? What's that? Then where is he?"
"In France."
"In France!"
"Yes, sir, in France, at the Château d'Ornequin, in the custody of my friends. If I am not back with them by six o'clock to-morrow evening, Prince Conrad will be handed over to the military authorities."
The Emperor seemed to be choking, so much so that his anger suddenly collapsed and that he did not even seek to conceal the violence of the blow. All the humiliation, all the ridicule that would fall upon him and upon his dynasty and upon the empire if his son were a prisoner, the loud laughter that would ring through the whole world at the news, the assurance which the possession of such a hostage would give to the enemy; all this showed in his anxious look and in the stoop of his shoulders.