"You will talk to me, René, or not, as seems the better to you."
"I shall speak, and frankly; but, sir, wait a little."
Without replying further, the German took up a book and read. The young man let fall his head on his hands, his elbows on a table. He had tried to forget, but now again with closed eyes and, with that doubtful gift of visual recall already mentioned he saw the great, dimly lighted hall at Avignon, the blood-stained murderers, the face of his father, his vain appeal. The tears rained through his fingers. He seemed to hear again: "Yvonne! Yvonne!" and at last to see, with definiteness sharpened by the morning's scene, the sudden look of ferocity in a young man's face—a man not much older than himself. He had thought to hear from it a plea for mercy. Ah, and to-day he had seen it gay with laughter. One day it would not laugh. He wiped away tears as he rose. The German gentleman caught him to his broad breast. "What is it, my son? Ah, I would that you were my son! Let us have it out—all of it. I, too, have had my share of sorrow. Let me hear, and tell it quietly. Then we can talk."
Thus it came about that with a sense of relief René told his story of failing fortunes, of their château in ruins, and of how, on his return from Avignon, he had found his mother in a friendly farm refuge. He told, too, with entire self-command of the tragedy in the papal city, his vain pursuit of Carteaux, their flight to England, and how on the voyage his mother had wrung from him the whole account of his father's death.
"Does she know his name?" asked Schmidt.
"Carteaux? Yes. I should not have told it, but I did. She would have me tell it."
"And that is all." For a little while the German, lighting his pipe, walked up and down the room without a word. Then at last, sitting down, he said: "René, what do you mean to do?"
"Kill him."
"Yes, of course," said Schmidt, coolly; "but—let us think a little. Do you mean to shoot him as one would a mad dog?"