The Princess may have suffered from the intense heat of the ballroom, and required rest without realising it, for she felt slightly faint, a little sick – almost a desire to sleep... She slipped down on to a low divan, which occupied a corner of the room: she drew deep breaths, breathing in the perfume, a sweet rather strange scent, from the sprayer.

“This scent is sickly,” she thought. “If only I had some eau-de-Cologne!”

Without rising, for she felt a real lassitude stealing over her, she looked round for the eau-de-Cologne she wanted: Thomery’s arsenal did not contain any. There was only one sprayer and that Sonia Danidoff held in her hand.

She sprinkled herself a second time, hoping that the perfume would revive her; but, on the contrary, her fatigue increased: her eyes closed for a moment.

When she opened them again the room was in darkness.

Sonia tried to rise from the divan. An overpowering torpor, though not disagreeable, was benumbing her whole body, and before her eyes bright lights seemed to float, followed by thick darkness. Her head spun round and round... she tried to cry out, but her voice stuck in her throat: her body jerked with a feeble convulsive movement. She heard indistinctly an unknown voice murmuring:

“Let yourself go!... Sleep!... Have no fear!” Sonia Danidoff attempted a momentary resistance, then she succumbed and lost all consciousness of her surroundings...

Absolute silence reigned in the boudoir Thomery had reserved for the sole use of his beautiful betrothed when he arrived to lead her to the cotillion. He found the door shut. He knocked discreetly. There was no reply. Repeated knocking evoked no audible answer. Thomery opened the door. The room was in total darkness. He switched on the electric light: the boudoir was brilliantly illuminated.... And the sight that met his startled eyes was so shocking that he grew livid with horror and rushed to the side of his betrothed.

Sonia Danidoff was extended on the divan motionless and pale as death. A hoarse and laboured breath came from her heaving bosom at irregular intervals; on the exquisite skin of her neck and naked breasts were spattered streaks of blood

Beside himself, Thomery rushed away in search of help. It was amidst this terrible crisis that the fiancé of Sonia Danidoff had attracted the attention of Charley, whose friend, the young engineer Andral, was the protégé of the man whose awful pallor and distracted air spelt tragedy.

Thomery, his countenance ravaged by intense emotion, his hands clenched, shaken by nervous tremors, hastened, with unsteady steps, in the direction of the gallery leading to the ante-room.