He could respond negatively to such questions; it would be difficult for the German to prove his affirmation; but he preferred to tell the truth, with the simplicity of one who does not try to hide his faults, describing himself just as he had been,--blind with lust, dragged down by the amorous artifices of an adventuress.
"The women!...

Ah, the women!" murmured the French chief with the melancholy smile of a magistrate who does not lose sight of human weaknesses and has participated in them.
Nevertheless Ferragut's transgression was of gravest importance.

He had aided in staging the submarine attack in the Mediterranean....

But when the Spanish captain related how he had been one of the first victims, how his son had died in the torpedoing of the _Californian_, the judge appeared touched, looking at him less severely.
Then Ferragut related his encounter with the spy in the harbor of Marseilles.
"I have sworn," he said finally, "to devote my ship and my life to causing all the harm possible to the murderers of my son....

That man is denouncing me in order to avenge himself.