"I must possess you!"
"Good God, am I also going crazy? Do my eyes—do my ears deceive me?"
"Hena—you are beautiful! Sister, I adore you—"
"Do not touch me! Mercy! Hervé, brother, you are demented! Recognize me—it is I—Hena—your own sister—it is I who am here before you—on my knees."
"Come, come into my arms!"
"Help! Help! Mother! Father!"
"Mother is far away—father also. We are alone—in the dark—and I have received absolution! You shall be mine, will ye nil ye!"
The monster, intent upon accomplishing his felony in obscurity, knocked down the lamp with his fist, threw himself upon Hena, and gripped her in his arms. The girl slipped away from him, reached the staircase that led to the lower floor, and bounded down. Hervé rushed after her, and seized her as she was about to clear the lowest steps. The distracted child called for help. Holding her with one hand, her brother tried to gag her with the other, lest her cries be heard by the neighbors. Suddenly the street door was thrown open, flooding the room with moonlight, and disclosing Bridget on the threshold. Thunderstruck, the mother perceived her daughter struggling in the arms of her brother, and still, though in a smothered voice, crying: "Help! Help!" The wretch, now rendered furious at the danger of his victim's escaping him, and dizzy with the vertigo of crime, did not at first recognize Bridget. He flung Hena behind him, and seizing a heavy iron coal-rake from the fireplace, was about to use it for a club, not even recoiling before murder in order to free himself from an importunate witness. Already the dangerous weapon was raised when, by the light of the moon, the incestuous lad discovered the features of his mother.
"Save yourself, mother," cried Hena between her sobs; "he is gone crazy; he will kill you. Only your timely help saved me from his violent assault."
"Infamous boy!" cried the mother. "That, then, was your purpose in removing me from the house. God willed that half way to La Catelle's I met her brother-in-law—"