“Yes, I know it to be true.”

“And because it’s true, and because we both know it to be true, neither one of us can draw back.  We cannot draw back if we would.  Suppose I said to you:  ‘Coquenil, I like you, I’m going to let you go free.’  What would you reply?  You would say:  ’Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck, I’m much obliged, but, as an honest man, I tell you that, as soon as I am free, I shall proceed to have this enormous fortune you have been wickedly enjoying taken from you and given to its rightful owner.’  Isn’t that about what you would say?”

“I suppose it is,” answered M. Paul.

“You know it is, and you would also say:  ’Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck, I shall not only take this fortune from you and make you very poor instead of very rich, but I shall denounce you as a murderer and shall do my best to have you marched out from a cell in the Roquette prison some fine morning, about dawn, between a jailer and a priest, with your legs roped together and your shirt cut away at the back of the neck and then to have you bound against an upright plank and tipped forward gently under a forty-pound knife’—­you see I know the details—­and then, phsst! the knife falls and behold the head of De Heidelmann-Bruck in one basket and his body in another!  That would be your general idea, eh?”

“Yes, it would,” nodded the other.

“Ah!” smiled the baron.  “You see how I have protected myself against my own weakness.  I must destroy you or be destroyed. I am forced, M. Coquenil, to end my friendly tolerance of your existence.”

“I see,” murmured M. Paul.  “If I hadn’t read that diary, your nerve would have been a little dulled for this—­business.”  He motioned meaningly toward the shadows.

“That’s it.”

“Whereas now the thing has to be done and—­you’ll do it.”

“Exactly!  Exactly!” replied the baron with the pleasure one might show at a delicate compliment.

For some moments the two were silent, then M. Paul asked gravely:  “How soon will the girl be here?”

“She’s undoubtedly here now.  She is waiting outside.”  He pointed to a heavily barred iron door.

“Does she know it was a trick, about the ring?”

“Not yet.”

Again there was a silence.  Coquenil hesitated before he said with an effort:  “Do you think it’s necessary to—­to include her in this—­affair?”

The baron thought a moment.  “I think I’d better make a clean job of it.”

“You mean both?”

“Yes.”

They seemed to understand by half words, by words not spoken, by little signs, as brokers in a great stock-exchange battle dispose of fortunes with a nod or a lift of the eyebrows.

“But—­she doesn’t know anything about you or against you,” added M. Paul, and he seemed to be almost pleading.

“She has caused me a lot of trouble and, she might know.”