She was listening to him now and in the greatest terror. So Daubrecq knew that he was spied upon! For a whole week he had seen through her and all her schemes!

In a low voice, anxious-eyed, she asked:

"You did it on purpose, did you not? You only went away to drag me with you?"

"Yes," he said.

"But why? Why?"

"Do you mean to say that you don't know?" retorted Daubrecq, laughing with a little cluck of delight.

She half-rose from her chair and, bending toward him, thought, as she thought each time, of the murder which she could commit, of the murder which she would commit. One revolver-shot and the odious brute was done for.

Slowly her hand glided to the weapon conoealed in her bodice.

Daubrecq said:

"One second, dear friend... You can shoot presently; but I beg you first to read this wire which I have just received."

She hesitated, not knowing what trap he was laying for her; but he went on, as he produced a telegram:

"It's about your son."

"Gilbert?" she asked, greatly concerned.

"Yes, Gilbert... Here, read it."

She gave a yell of dismay. She had read:

"Execution on Tuesday morning."

And she at once flung herself on Daubrecq, crying:

"It's not true!... It's a lie... to madden me... Oh, I know you: you are capable of anything! Confess! It won't be on Tuesday, will it? In two days! No, no... I tell you, we have four days yet, five days, in which to save him... Confess it, confess it!"

She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and her voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds.

He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and down the room, came back to her and said:

"Listen to me, darling... "

The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew herself up and, panting with indignation, said:

"I forbid you... I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not accept such an outrage. You wretch!... "

He shrugged his shoulders and resumed:

"Pah, I see you're not quite alive to the position. That comes, of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter. Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you are... My dear friend, a forlorn hope... You must know that Prasville is mixed up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is to say, his name is not on the list of the Twenty-seven; but it is there under the name of one of his friends, an ex-deputy called Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his man of straw, apparently: a penniless individual whom I left alone and rightly. I knew nothing of all that until this morning, when, lo and behold, I received a letter informing me of the existence of a bundie of documents which prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville! And who is my informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of living in poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of being arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he's annoyed me long enough! Prasville, old boy, you've deserved it... "