Paul was dumfounded. That officer to whom Bernard was calling his attention was . . . but no, it could not be. And yet . . .
"What do you mean to suggest, Bernard?" he asked.
"It's the same face," muttered Bernard, "the same face as yesterday, you know, Paul: the face of the woman who asked me those questions about you, Paul."
And Paul on his side recognized beyond the possibility of a doubt the mysterious individual who had tried to kill him at the little door leading out of the park, the creature who presented such an unconceivable resemblance to his father's murderess, to the woman of the portrait, to Hermine d'Andeville, Élisabeth's mother and Bernard's.
"No, don't do that!" cried Paul, terrified at the movement.
He darted forward in a mad rush of hatred, but the officer had run to the car. The German soldiers held out their hands and hoisted him into their midst. Paul shot the one who was seated at the wheel. The officer caught hold of it just as the car was about to strike a tree, changed the direction and, skilfully guiding the car past the intervening obstacles, drove it behind a bend in the ground and from there towards the frontier. He was saved.
As soon as he was beyond the range of the bullets, the German soldiers who were still fighting surrendered.
Paul was trembling with impotent fury. To him this individual represented every imaginable form of evil; and, from the first to the last minute of that long series of tragedies, murders, attempts at spying and assassination, treacheries and deliberate shootings, all conceived with the same object and the same spirit, that one figure stood out as the very genius of crime.
Nothing short of the creature's death would have appeased Paul's hatred. It was he, the monster, Paul never entertained a doubt of it, who had ordered Élisabeth to be shot. Élisabeth shot! Oh, the shame of it! Oh, infernal vision that tormented him! . . .
"Who is he?" he cried. "How can we find out? How can we get at him and torture him and kill him?"
The captain considered it wiser to advance no farther and ordered the company to fall back, so as to remain in touch with the remainder of the regiment. Paul was told off specially to occupy the château with his section and to take the prisoners there.