"Stéphane d'Andeville. . . . Stéphane. . . ."
It was the father of Élisabeth and Bernard. He was very pale, weakened by the wounds which he had received and from which he was only beginning to recover.
He embraced his children. Bernard expressed his surprise and delight at seeing him there.
"Yes," he said, "I had a message from the commander-in-chief and I came the moment Paul sent for me. Your husband is a fine fellow, Élisabeth. He told me what had happened when we met a little while ago. And I now see all that he has done . . . to crush that viper!"
He had taken up his stand opposite the countess; and his hearers felt beforehand the full importance of the words which he was about to speak. For a moment, she lowered her head before him. But soon her eyes once more flashed defiance; and she said:
"So you, too, have come to accuse me? What have you to say against me? Lies, I suppose? Infamies? . . ."
There was a long pause after those words. Then, speaking slowly, he said:
"I come, in the first place, as a witness to give the evidence as to your identity for which you were asking just now. You introduced yourself to me long ago by a name which was not your own, a name under which you succeeded in gaining my confidence. Later, when you tried to bring about a closer relationship between us, you revealed to me who you really were, hoping in this way to dazzle me with your titles and your connections. It is therefore my right and my duty to declare before God and man that you are really and truly the Countess Hermine von Hohenzollern. The documents which you showed me were genuine. And it was just because you were the Countess von Hohenzollern that I broke off relations which in any case were painful and disagreeable to me, for reasons which I should have been puzzled to state. That is my evidence."
"It is infamous evidence!" she cried, in a fury. "Lying evidence, as I said it would be! Not a proof!"
"Not a proof?" echoed the Comte d'Andeville, moving closer to her and shaking with rage. "What about this photograph, signed by yourself, which you sent me from Berlin? This photograph in which you had the impudence to dress up like my wife? Yes, you, you! You did this thing! You thought that, by trying to make your picture resemble that of my poor loved one, you would rouse in my breast feelings favorable to yourself! And you did not feel that what you were doing was the worst insult, the worst outrage that you could offer to the dead! And you dared, you, you, after what had happened . . ."