"So this cousin killed somebody?"

"Yes, he was obliged to."

Renine shook his head:

"I am sorry to have to amend that phrase, my dear sir. The truth, on the
contrary, is that your cousin took his victims' lives in cold blood and in
a cowardly manner. I never heard of a crime more deliberately and craftily
planned."

"What is it that you know?"

The moment had come for Renine to explain himself, a solemn and
anguish-stricken moment, the full gravity of which Hortense understood,
though she had not yet divined any part of the tragedy which the prince
unfolded step by step."

"It's a very simple story," he said. "There is every reason to believe that
M. d'Aigleroche was married and that there was another couple living in
the neighbourhood with whom the owner of the Domaine de Halingre were on
friendly terms. What happened one day, which of these four persons first
disturbed the relations between the two households, I am unable to say. But
a likely version, which at once occurs to the mind, is that your cousin's
wife, Madame d'Aigleroche, was in the habit of meeting the other husband
in the ivy-covered tower, which had a door opening outside the estate. On
discovering the intrigue, your cousin d'Aigleroche resolved to be revenged,
but in such a manner that there should be no scandal and that no one
even should ever know that the guilty pair had been killed. Now he had
ascertained--as I did just now--that there was a part of the house, the