XXXII
... the Man got up from his chair and walked toward the door.
I saw that He walked with my walk. When He arose, I had felt in the muscles of my hips and back, a sudden stiffening as though I too were making an effort to rise from my chair. Each of his strides thereafter caused rapid contractions of the muscles in my thighs, in the calves of my legs, at my ankles.
He stopped at the door into the anteroom, and stood there with his hand on the latch.
And I heard the voice of the Marquis Gaspard speaking, a voice I could scarcely recognize, so faint, so broken, so husky had it become—a breathing rather than a voice.
It said:
“The papers!”
The towering figure of the Vicomte Antoine came between the Man and me. Nevertheless I could see, I know not how, that into the Man’s pocket the vicomte was slipping my purse and the letter from the colonel of artillery.