"For the Schoolmaster. And do you, at the same time, tell them to bring him in here."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PUNISHMENT.
The scene we are about to describe took place in a room hung with red, and brilliantly lighted. Rodolph, clothed in a long dressing-gown of black velvet, which increased the pallor of his features, was seated before a large table covered with a green cloth. On this table was the Schoolmaster's pocketbook, the pinchbeck chain of the Chouette (to which was suspended the little Saint Esprit of lapis lazuli), the blood-stained stiletto with which Murphy had been stabbed, the crowbar with which the door had been forced, and the five notes of a thousand francs each, which the Chourineur had fetched out of the next apartment.
The negro doctor was seated at one side of the table, the Chourineur on the other. The Schoolmaster, tightly bound with cords, and unable to move a limb, was placed in a large armchair on casters, in the middle of the salon. The people who had brought in this man had withdrawn, and Rodolph, the doctor, the Chourineur, and the assassin were left alone. Rodolph was no longer out of temper, but calm, sad, and collected; he was about to discharge a solemn, self-imposed, and important duty. The doctor was lost in meditation. The Chourineur felt an indescribable fear; he could not take his eyes off Rodolph. The Schoolmaster's countenance was ghastly; he was in an agony of fear. The most profound silence reigned within; nothing was heard but the splash, splash of the rain without, as it fell from the roof on to the pavement. Rodolph addressed the Schoolmaster:
"Anselm Duresnel, you have escaped from the Bagne at Rochefort, where you were condemned for life for forgery, robbery, and murder!"
"It's false!" said the Schoolmaster, in a hollow voice, and looking about him with his restless and glaring glance.
"You are Anselm Duresnel, and you murdered and robbed a cattle-dealer on the road to Poissy—"