“You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over,” returned Bintrey.  “For the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at once to business.  There has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer, between you and your niece.  I am here to represent your niece.”

“In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of the law.”

“Admirably put!” said Bintrey.  “If all the people I have to deal with were only like you, what an easy profession mine would be!  I am here to represent an infraction of the law—­that is your point of view.  I am here to make a compromise between you and your niece—­that is my point of view.”

“There must be two parties to a compromise,” rejoined Obenreizer.  “I decline, in this case, to be one of them.  The law gives me authority to control my niece’s actions, until she comes of age.  She is not yet of age; and I claim my authority.”

At this point Maitre attempted to speak.  Bintrey silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he was silencing a favourite child.

“No, my worthy friend, not a word.  Don’t excite yourself unnecessarily; leave it to me.”  He turned, and addressed himself again to Obenreizer.  “I can think of nothing comparable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but granite—­and even that wears out in course of time.  In the interests of peace and quietness—­for the sake of your own dignity—­relax a little.  If you will only delegate your authority to another person whom I know of, that person may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or day!”

“You are wasting your time and mine,” returned Obenreizer.  “If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, I invoke the law.  If you resist the law, I take her by force.”

He rose to his feet as he said the last word.  Maitre Voigt looked round again towards the brown door which led into the inner room.

“Have some pity on the poor girl,” pleaded Bintrey.  “Remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death!  Will nothing move you?”

“Nothing.”

Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maitre Voigt.  Maitre Voigt’s hand, resting on the table, began to tremble.  Maitre Voigt’s eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the brown door.  Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too.

“There is somebody listening in there!” he exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at Bintrey.

“There are two people listening,” answered Bintrey.

“Who are they?”

“You shall see.”

With this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words—­the two common words which are on everybody’s lips, at every hour of the day:  “Come in!”

The brown door opened.  Supported on Marguerite’s arm—­his sun-burnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and clung over his breast—­Vendale stood before the murderer, a man risen from the dead.