"Well, Monsieur de Courtomer?" asked the President after a moment.
Awful and surprising finish! Laurent had so ached to tell this story of heroism and endurance, and now he could not. His own sensations of the time came back too vividly, and closed up his throat, precluding speech. Besides, his tongue did not seem able to find a way of uttering the thing. He stood there, mute and agonized, with everyone—save Aymar—gazing at him.
"Do you mean that they threatened him?" suggested the Marquis de la Boëssière.
And as the hitherto voluble witness shook his head he said almost impatiently,
"What were the means they used, then?"
At that Laurent managed—but only just—to bring it out.
"They used . . . a red-hot ramrod!" he gasped; and fled the table.
(12)
There was an instant's electric silence. "What!" exclaimed several incredulous and horrified voices from the dais, M. d'Andigné's among them. "Good—God!" said the Marquis de la Boëssière slowly.
But Laurent, without waiting for permission, was already back in his place, his elbows on his knees, his head between his fists, heedless of what, under cover of the general sensation, M. Perrelet on the one side was disjointedly asking him, and of de Fresne swearing below his breath on the other. "Ought I to have done it? ought I to have done it?" he was saying to himself. "And will he forgive me?"