“Absinth is what ails you, Defarge. You’ve got to quit it—or go up the spout.”
“I—I don’t believe I can quit it,” confessed Bertrand, with a pitiful expression of helplessness. “It’s the only thing that soothes my nerves.”
“It may seem to quiet them for the time, but it tears you all to pieces afterward, and you know it. And every time you take the stuff you are becoming more and more its victim. It has a fearful hold on you already.”
Defarge trembled.
“Oh, if I could do one thing I would be all right!” he cried.
“What’s that?”
“Get away from those eyes! I’ll do it, too! I’m going to get away from them! I know a way!”
Skelding thought of the revolver, which Bertrand had been loading. It was lying on the table now, beside two boxes of cartridges.
“How do you mean?” he asked. “You’re not thinking of shooting yourself?”
“Oh, no!”