He's
trembling!... Give me the knife, so that I may dig it into his heart
while he's shivering.... Oh, you coward!... Quick, quick, Gabriel, the
knife!..."

"I can't find it anywhere," said the young man, running back in dismay.
"It has gone from my room! I can't make it out!"

"Never mind!" cried the Widow Dugrival, half demented. "All the better!
I will do the business myself."

She seized Lupin by the throat, clutched him with her ten fingers,
digging her nails into his flesh, and began to squeeze with all her
might. Lupin uttered a hoarse rattle and gave himself up for lost.

Suddenly, there was a crash at the window. One of the panes was smashed
to pieces.

"What's that? What is it?" stammered the widow, drawing herself erect,
in alarm.

Gabriel, who had turned even paler than usual, murmured:

"I don't know.... I can't think...."

"Who can have done it?" said the widow.

She dared not move, waiting for what would come next. And one thing
above all terrified her, the fact that there was no missile on the floor
around them, although the pane of glass, as was clearly visible, had
given way before the crash of a heavy and fairly large object, a stone,
probably.

After a while, she looked under the bed, under the chest of drawers:

"Nothing," she said.

"No," said her nephew, who was also looking. And, resuming her seat, she
said:

"I feel frightened ... my arms fail me ... you finish him off...."

Gabriel confessed:

"I'm frightened also."

"Still ... still," she stammered, "it's got to be done.... I swore
it...."

Making one last effort, she returned to Lupin and gasped his neck with
her stiff fingers. But Lupin, who was watching her pallid face, received
a very clear sensation that she would not have the courage to kill him.
To her he was becoming something sacred, invulnerable. A mysterious
power was protecting him against every attack, a power which had already
saved him three times by inexplicable means and which would find other
means to protect him against the wiles of death.

She said to him, in a hoarse voice:

"How you must be laughing at me!"

"Not at all, upon my word. I should feel frightened myself, in your
place."

"Nonsense, you scum of the earth! You imagine that you will be rescued
... that your friends are waiting outside? It's out of the question, my
fine fellow."

"I know. It's not they defending me ... nobody's defending me...."

"Well, then?..."

"Well, all th