and primitive instincts. Remember, Monsieur,
that they had laid hands upon what to me was the most sacred thing on
earth. Marie was in prison. Marie was accused of committing two
murders!... I went mad.

"At first controlling myself, playing a part with the Prefect of Police,
then overthrowing every obstacle, shooting Chief Inspector Ancenis,
shaking off Sergeant Mazeroux, jumping from the window, I had only one
thought in my head--that of escape. Once free, I should save Marie. Were
there people in my way? So much the worse for them.

"By what right did those people dare to attack the most blameless of
women? I killed only one man that day! I would have killed ten! I would
have killed twenty! What was Chief Inspector Ancenis's life to me? What
cared I for the lives of any of those wretches? They stood between Marie
and myself; and Marie was in prison!"

Gaston Sauverand made an effort which contracted every muscle of his face
to recover the coolness that was gradually leaving him. He succeeded in
doing so, but his voice, nevertheless, remained tremulous, and the fever
with which he was consumed shook his frame in a manner which he was
unable to conceal.

He continued:

"At the corner of the street down which I turned after outdistancing the
Prefect's men on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Florence saved me just as
I believed that all was lost. Florence had known everything for a
fortnight past. She learnt the news of the double murder from the papers,
those papers which she used to read out to you, and which you discussed
with her. And it was by being with you, by listening to you, that she
acquired the opinion which everything that happened tended to confirm:
the opinion that Marie's enemy, her only enemy, was yourself."

"But why? Why?"

"Because she saw you at work," exclaimed Sauverand, "because it was more
to your interest than to that of any one else that first Marie and then I
should not come between you and the Mornington inheritance, and lastly--"

"What?"

Gaston Sauverand hesitated and then said, plainly:

"Lastly, because she knew your real name beyond a doubt, and because she
felt that Arsene Lupin was capable of anything."

They were both silent; and their silence, at such a moment, was
impressive to a degree. Florence remained impassive under Don Luis
Perenna's gaze; and he was unable to discern on her sealed face any of
the feelings with which she must needs be stirred.

Gaston Sauverand