Ferragut hastened to put the letter in a safe place, and curb his impatience. He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences. This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most interesting of stories.
Returning to his ship, the road seemed to him far longer than at other times. He longed to lock himself in his stateroom, away from all curiosity as though he were about to perform some mysterious rite.
Freya was not in existence. She had disappeared from the world in the infamous manner in which criminals disappear,—doubly condemned since even her memory was hateful to the people; and Ferragut within a few moments was going to resurrect her like a ghost, in the floating house that she had visited on two occasions. He now might know the last hours of her existence wrapped in disreputable mystery; he could violate the will of her judges who had condemned her to lose her life and after death to perish from every one's memory. With eager avidity he seated himself before his cabin table, arranging the contents of the envelope in order;—more than twelve sheets, written on both sides, and several newspaper clippings. In these clippings he saw portraits of Freya, a hard and blurred likeness which he could recognize only by her name underneath. He also beheld the portrait of her defender,—an old lawyer of fastidious aspect with white locks carefully combed, and sharp eyes.
From the very first lines, Ferragut suspected that the maître could neither write nor speak except in the most approved literary form. His letter was a moderated and correct account in which all emotion, however keen it might have been, was discreetly controlled so as not to disorganize the sweep of a majestic style.
He began by explaining that his professional duty had made him decide to defend this spy. She was in need of a lawyer; she was a foreigner; public opinion, influenced by the exaggerated accounts given by the newspapers of her beauty and her jewels, was ferociously inimical, demanding her immediate punishment. Nobody had wished to take charge of her defense. And for this very reason he had accepted it without fear of unpopularity.
Ferragut believed that this sacrifice might be attributed to the impulse of a gallant old beau, attracted to Freya because of her beauty. Besides, this criminal process represented a typical Parisian incident and might give a certain romantic notoriety to the one intervening in its developments.
A few paragraphs further on the sailor became convinced that the maître had fallen in love with his client. This woman even in her dying moments shed around her most amazing powers of seduction. The professional success anticipated by the lawyer disappeared on his first questioning. Defense of Freya would be impossible. When he questioned her regarding the events of her former life, she either wept for every answer, or else remained silent, immovable, with as unconcerned a glance as though the fate of some other woman were at stake.
The military judges did not need her confessions: they knew, detail for detail, all her existence during the war and in the last years of peace. Never had the police agents abroad worked with such rapidity and success. Mysterious and omnipotent good fortune had crowned every investigation. They knew all of Freya's doings. They had even received from a secret agent exact data regarding her personality, the number by which she was represented in the director's office at Berlin, the salary that she was paid, as well as her reports during the past month. Documents written by her personally, of an irrefutable culpability, had poured in without any one's knowing from what point they were sent or by whom.
Every time that the judge had placed before Freya's eyes one of these proofs, she looked at her lawyer in desperation.
"It is they!" she moaned. "They who desire my death!"