Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it before eight o’clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of bed.  The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way to catch a train.

Don Luis was greatly upset.

“Is she dead?” he exclaimed.

“No.  It seems that she has had one more let-off.  But what’s the good?”

“How do you mean, what’s the good?”

“She’ll do it again, of course.  She’s set her mind upon it.  And, one day or another—­”

“Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the attempt on her life?”

“No.  She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the mysterious letters.  He was the only friend that she had known her husband to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, ’My dear fellow,’ or, ‘My dear friend,’ This M. Langernault could do no more than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of which she was the victim.”

“But,” said Don Luis, “if there is any one to prove her innocence, why does she begin by opening her veins?”

“She doesn’t care, she says.  Her life is done for; and what she wants is rest and death.”

“Rest?  Rest?  There are other ways in which she can find it besides in death.  If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the truth is not impossible to discover.”

“What are you saying, Chief?  Have you guessed anything?  Are you beginning to understand?”

“Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of those letters just seems to me a sign—­”

He reflected for a moment and continued: 

“Have they reexamined the erased addresses of the three letters?”

“Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault.”

“Where does this Langernault live?”

“According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme.”

“Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?”

“No, but they have the name of the nearest town.”

“What town is that?”

“Alencon.”

“And is that where you’re going?”

“Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway.  I shall take the train at the Invalides.”

“You mean you will come with me in my motor.”

“Eh?”

“We will both of us go, my lad.  I want to be doing something; the atmosphere of this house is deadly for me.”

“What are you talking about, Chief?”

“Nothing.  I know.”

Half an hour later they were flying along the Versailles Road.  Perenna himself was driving his open car and driving it in such a way that Mazeroux, almost stifling, kept blurting out, at intervals: 

“Lord, what a pace!  Dash it all, how you’re letting her go, Chief!  Aren’t you afraid of a smash?  Remember the other day—­”