To the _maitre_ it was only too evident that some mysterious power had wished to rid itself of this woman, dispatching her to an enemy's country, intending to send her to death.
Ulysses suspected in the defender a state of mind similar to his own,--the same duality that had tormented him in all his relations with Freya.
"I, sir," wrote the lawyer, "have suffered much.

One of my sons, an officer, died in the battle of the Aisne.

Others very close to me, nephews and pupils, died in Verdun and with the expeditionary army of the Orient...." As a Frenchman, he had felt an irresistible aversion upon becoming convinced that Freya was a spy who had done great harm to his country....

Then as a man, he had commiserated her inconsequence, her contradictory and frivolous character, amounting almost to a crime, and her egoism as a beautiful woman and lover of luxury that had made her willing to suffer moral vileness in exchange for creature comfort.
Her story had attracted the lawyer with the palpitating interest of a novel of adventure.

Commiseration had finally developed the vehemence of a love affair.