"You are free, sir. I have an appointment with one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp on the frontier at three o'clock to-day. He is bringing twenty French prisoners and I am to hand your royal highness over to him in exchange. Pray, step into the car."
Prince Conrad obviously did not grasp a word of what Paul was saying. The appointment on the frontier, the twenty prisoners and the rest were just so many phrases which failed to make any impression on his bewildered brain. But, when he had taken his seat and when the motor-car drove slowly round the lawn, he saw something that completed his discomfiture. Élisabeth stood on the grass and made him a smiling curtsey.
It was an obvious hallucination. He rubbed his eyes with a flabbergasted air which so clearly indicated what was in his mind that Bernard said:
"Make no mistake, sir. It's my sister all right. Yes, Paul Delroze and I thought we had better go and fetch her in Germany. So we turned up our Baedeker, asked for an interview with the Emperor and it was His Majesty himself who, with his usual good grace. . . . Oh, by the way, sir, you must expect to receive a wigging from the governor! His Majesty is simply furious with you. Such a scandal, you know! Behaving like a rotter, you know! You're in for a bad time, sir!"
The exchange took place at the hour named. The twenty prisoners were handed over. Paul Delroze took the aide-de-camp aside:
"Sir," he said, "you will please tell the Emperor that the Comtesse Hermine von Hohenzollern made an attempt to assassinate the commander-in-chief. She was arrested by me, tried by court-martial and sentenced and has been shot by the commander-in-chief's orders. I am in possession of a certain number of her papers, especially private letters to which I have no doubt that the Emperor himself attaches the greatest importance. They will be returned to His Majesty on the day when the Château d'Ornequin recovers all its furniture, pictures and other valuables. I wish you good-day, sir."
It was over. Paul had won all along the line. He had delivered Élisabeth and revenged his father's death. He had destroyed the head of the German secret service and, by insisting on the release of the twenty French prisoners, kept all the promises which he had made to the general commanding-in-chief. He had every right to be proud of his work.