The murder was decided. They no longer seemed to be walking. It appeared to them that some strange force sent them along just above the ground. Their senses had, all at once, become extremely acute, particularly the touch, for their hands, resting one in the other, were in pain, and the slightest brush of the lips was like a scratch. They also heard sounds which were lost a moment before—the rumble, the distant puffs of the engines, the muffled shocks, footsteps wandering in the depth of the obscurity. And they could see into the night; they distinguished the black spots of objects as if a mist had been removed from their eyes, they were able to follow the sharp curves described in the air by a passing bat. They stopped, motionless, at the corner of a heap of coal, ears and eyes on the alert, and with all their beings in a state of tension; they now spoke in whispers.
"Did you hear that?" she inquired. "Over there, somebody calling."
"No," he replied, "they're putting a carriage into the coach-house."
"But there, someone is walking on our left," said she. "I heard the sound on the gravel."
"No, no," he answered, "rats are running over the coal heaps, and some of the pieces rolled down."
Several minutes passed. Suddenly it was she who strained him to her more closely.
"There he is!" she exclaimed.
"Where? I can't see him," said he.
"He has turned round the shed of the slow-train goods department," she continued. "He is coming straight towards us. Look at his shadow, passing along the white wall!"
"Do you think it is? That dark spot? Then he must be alone," he said.