If anyone here has any other idea, let him state it." Monsieur Stangerson intervened: "What you say was impossible.

I do not believe either in the guilt or in the connivance of my concierges, though I cannot understand what they were doing in the park at that late hour of the night.

I say it was impossible, because Madame Bernier held the lamp and did not move from the threshold of the room; because I, as soon as the door was forced open, threw myself on my knees beside my daughter, and no one could have left or entered the room by the door, without passing over her body and forcing his way by me! Daddy Jacques and the concierge had but to cast a glance round the chamber and under the bed, as I had done on entering, to see that there was nobody in it but my daughter lying on the floor." "What do you think, Monsieur Darzac ?" asked the magistrate.
Monsieur Darzac replied that he had no opinion to express.

Monsieur Dax, the Chief of the Surete who, so far, had been listening and examining the room, at length deigned to open his lips: "While search is being made for the criminal, we had better try to find out the motive for the crime; that will advance us a little," he said.

Turning towards Monsieur Stangerson, he continued, in the even, intelligent tone indicative of a strong character, "I understand that Mademoiselle was shortly to have been married ?" The professor looked sadly at Monsieur Robert Darzac.
"To my friend here, whom I should have been happy to call my son--to Monsieur Robert Darzac." "Mademoiselle Stangerson is much better and is rapidly recovering from her wounds.