"It is a souvenir. My poor sister Antoinette was wearing it when she died."
Christophe trembled. The name of Antoinette struck him like a flash of lightning.
"Antoinette?" he said.
"My sister," said Olivier.
Christophe repeated:
"Antoinette … Antoinette Jeannin…. She was your sister?… But," he said, as he looked at the photograph on the desk, "she was quite a child when you lost her?"
Olivier smiled sadly.
"It is a photograph of her as a child," he said. "Alas! I have no other….
She was twenty-five when she left me."
"Ah!" said Christophe, who was greatly moved. "And she was in Germany, was she not?"
Olivier nodded.