"No," he cried, "not that! Never! Don't reckon on me!... No, that would be too idiotic!"

He walked up and down, in a state of intense excitement, with that queer step of his, which swayed him from right to left on each of his legs, like a wild beast, a heavy, clumsy bear. And, with a hoarse voice and distorted features, he shouted:

"Let her come here! Let her come and beg for her son's pardon! But let her come unarmed, not with criminal intentions, like last time! Let her come as a supplicant, as a tamed woman, as a submissive woman, who understands and accepts the situation... Gilbert? Gilbert's sentence? The scaffold? Why, that is where my strength lies! What! For more than twenty years have I awaited my hour; and, when that hour strikes, when fortune brings me this unhoped-for chance, when I am at last about to know the joy of a full revenge - and such a revenge! - you think that I will give it up, give up the thing which I have been pursuing for twenty years? I save Gilbert? I? For nothing? For love? I, aubrecq?... No, no, you can't have studied my features!"

He laughed, with a fierce and hateful laugh. Visibly, he saw before him, within reach of his hand, the prey which he had been hunting down so long. And Lupin also summoned up the vision of Clarisse, as he had seen her several days before, fainting, already beaten, fatally conquered, because all the hostile powers were in league against her.

He contained himself and said:

"Listen to me."

And, when Daubrecq moved away impatiently, he took him by the two shoulders, with that superhuman strength which Daubrecq knew, from having felt it in the box at the Vaudeville, and, holding him motionless in his grip, he said:

"One last word."

"You're Wasting your breath," growled the deputy.

"One last word. Listen, Daubrecq: forget Mme. Mergy, give up all the nonsensical and imprudent acts which your pride and your passions are making you commit; put all that on one side and think only of your interest... "

"My interest," said Daubrecq, jestingly, "always coincides with my pride and with what you call my passions."

"Up to the present, perhaps. But not now, not now that I have taken a hand in the business. That constitutes a new factor, which you choose to ignore. You are wrong. Gilbert is my pal. Gilbert is my chum. Gilbert has to be saved from the scaffold. Use your influence to that end, and I swear to you, do you hear, I swear that we will leave you in peace. Gilbert's safety, that's all I ask. You will have no more battles to wage with Mme. Mergy, with me; there will be no more traps laid for you. You will be the master, free to act as you please. Gilbert's safety, Daubrecq! If you refuse... "

"What then?"

"If you refuse, it will be war, relentless war; in other words, a certain defeat for you."

"Meaning thereby... "

"Meaning thereby that I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from you.

"Rot! You think so, do you?"

"I swear it."

"What Prasville and all his men, what Clarisse Mergy, what nobody has been able to do, you think that you will do!"