She had scarcely disappeared under the arch when Rouletabille and M. Darzac entered the room. They had heard all that had passed. Rouletabille advanced to my side and told me quietly that he was aware that I had betrayed him.
“You are using a large word, Rouletabille!” I exclaimed. “You know that I am not in the habit of betraying anyone! Mme. Edith is really very much to be pitied and you do not pity her enough, my friend.”
“Ah, well! you pity her too much!”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. I started to make some reply but Rouletabille cut short my words with a dry gesture.
“I ask you only one thing—only one, you understand. It is that, no matter what may happen—no matter what may happen—you shall not address one word to either M. Darzac or to myself.”
“That will be a very easy thing to promise!” I replied, foolishly irritated, and I turned my back upon him. It seemed to me that it was with difficulty that he refrained from uttering some angry speech.
But at the same moment, the officers, coming out of the New Castle, called to us. The inquest was at an end. There was no doubt, in their eyes, after the declaration of the doctors, that the affair had been an accident and that was the verdict which they felt obliged to render. M. Darzac and Rouletabille accompanied them to the outer gate. And as I stood leaning on my elbows, at the window which opens upon the Court of the Bold, assailed by a thousand sinister presentiments and awaiting with an increasing anxiety for the return of Mme. Edith, while a few steps away in the lodge, where the candles had been lighted around Bernier’s bier, Mere Bernier kept on sobbing and praying beside the corpse of her husband, I suddenly heard a sound which fell upon the evening air like the blow of an immense gong; and I knew that it was Rouletabille who had ordered the iron gates to be closed.
Not a single minute passed after that when I saw Mme. Edith rush into the room and hurry to me as though I were her only refuge.
Then I saw M. Darzac appear—
Then Rouletabille, and leaning on his arm was the Lady in Black.