.

Not yet daring to deliver a frontal attack, feeling almost intimidated,
Prasville said:

"So Daubrecq gave it up to you?"

"Daubrecq gives nothing up. I took it."

"By main force, therefore?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said M. Nicole, laughing. "Of course, I was ready to go
to all lengths; and, when that worthy Daubrecq was dug out of the basket
in which he had been travelling express, with an occasional dose of
chloroform to keep his strength up, I had prepared things so that the
fun might begin at once. Oh, no useless tortures... no vain sufferings!
No... Death, simply... You press the point of a long needle on the
chest, where the heart is, and insert it gradually, softly and gently.
That's all but the point would have been driven by Mme. Mergy. You
understand: a mother is pitiless, a mother whose son is about to die!...
'Speak, Daubrecq, or I'll go deeper.... You won't speak?... Then I'll
push another quarter of an inch... and another still.' And the patient's
heart stops beating, the heart that feels the needle coming... And
another quarter of an inch... and one more... I swear before Heaven that
the villain would have spoken!... We leant over him and waited for him
to wake, trembling with impatience, so urgent was our hurry... Can't you
picture the scene, monsieur le secretaire-general? The scoundrel lying
on a sofa, well bound, bare-chested, making efforts to throw off the
fumes of chloroform that dazed him. He breathes quicker... He gasps...
He recovers consciousness...his lips move.... Already, Clarisse Mergy
whispers, 'It's I... it's I, Clarisse... Will you answer, you wretch?'
She has put her finger on Daubrecq's chest, at the spot where the heart
stirs like a little animal hidden under the skin. But she says to me,
'His eyes... his eyes... I can't see them under the spectacles... I want
to see them... 'And I also want to see those eyes which I do not know,
I want to see their anguish and I want to read in them, before I hear a
word, the secret which is about to burst from the inmost recesses of
the terrified body. I want to see. I long to see. The action which I am
about to accomplish excites me beyond measure. It seems to me that,
when I have seen the eyes, the veil will be rent asunder. I shall know
things. It is a presentiment. It is the profound intuition of the truth
that keeps me on tenterhooks. The eye-glasses are gone. But the thick
opaque spectacles are there still. And I snatch them off, suddenly. An