“Don’t leave me! I beg of you not to leave me until Robert comes back!” she cried in terror. Rouletabille begged her to try and take some rest and promised to remain near her if she would close her door, when someone knocked at the door of the corridor. Rouletabille asked who was there and the voice of Darzac answered.
“At last!” cried Rouletabille, and he threw the door open.
The man who entered looked like a corpse. Never was human face so pallid, so bloodless, so devoid of all semblance of life. So many emotions had ravaged his visage that it expressed not a single one.
“Ah! you were there!” he said. “Well, it is over.”
And he fell into the chair from which Rouletabille had just raised the Lady in Black. He looked up at her.
“Your wish is realized,” he said. “It is where you wished it to be.”
“Did you see his face?” questioned Rouletabille excitedly.
“No,” answered Darzac, wearily. “I have not seen it. Did you think that I was going to open the sack?”
I thought that Rouletabille would have shown discomfiture at this answer but, on the contrary, he turned to M. Darzac and said:
“Ah, you did not see his face. That’s very good, indeed.” And he pressed his hand affectionately.