"I forbid you to touch the money!"
He had finished eating, and, quietly folding up his napkin, he rose, saying in a bantering tone:
"If you want to share the cash, let us do so."
He was already bending down as if to take up the piece of parquetry, and she had to rush forward and place her foot on it.
"No, no!" she pleaded. "You know I would prefer death. Do not open it. No, no! not before me!"
That same night Séverine had an appointment with Jacques behind the goods station. When she returned home after twelve o'clock, the scene with her husband in the evening recurred to her, and she double-locked herself in her bedroom. Roubaud was on night duty, and she had no anxiety lest he should return and come to bed, a circumstance that very rarely happened, even when he had his nights to himself. But with bedclothes to her chin, and the lamp turned down, she failed to get to sleep. Why had she refused to share?
And she found that her ideas of honesty were not so keen as before, at the thought of taking advantage of this money. Had she not accepted the legacy of La Croix-de-Maufras? Then she could very well take the money also. Now the shivering fit returned. No, no, never! Money she would have taken. What she dared not touch, without fear of literally burning her fingers, was this money stolen from a dead body, this abominable money of the murder! She again recovered calm, and reasoned with herself: if she had taken the money, it would not have been to spend it; on the contrary, she would have hidden it somewhere else, buried it in a place known to her alone, where it would have remained eternally; and, at this hour even, half the amount would still be saved from the hands of her husband. He would not enjoy the triumph of having it all, he would not be able to gamble away what belonged to her.
When the clock struck three she felt mortally sorry that she had refused to share. A thought, indeed, came to her, still confused, and far from being determined on: supposing she were to get up, and search beneath the parquetry, so that he might have nothing more. Only she was seized with such icy coldness that she would not dream of it. Take all, keep all, without him daring to complain! And this plan, little by little, gained on her; while a will stronger than her resistance arose from the unconscious depths of her being. She would not do it; and yet she abruptly leapt from the bed, for she could not restrain herself. Turning up the lamp, she passed into the dining-room.
From that moment Séverine ceased trembling. Her terror left her, and she proceeded calmly, with the slow and precise gestures of a somnambulist. She had to fetch the poker, which served to raise the piece of parquetry, and failing to see when the hole was uncovered, she brought the lamp near it. But then, bending forward, motionless, she became riveted to the spot in stupor: the hole was empty. It appeared evident, that while she had gone to her appointment with Jacques, Roubaud had returned, tormented by the same desire as herself to take all and keep all, a desire that had come to him before attacking her; and at one stroke he had pocketed all the banknotes that were left. Not a single one remained. She knelt down, but only perceived the watch and chain at the back of the hiding-place, where the gold sparkled in the dust of the joists. Frigid rage kept her there an instant, rigid and half nude, repeating aloud, a score of times over: