“And are you certain that my wife did not see him?” repeated Darzac, who was growing more and more agitated.
“Certain, I assure you.”
“But, Good God, M. Darzac!” interposed Rouletabille. “How long do you think you can deceive your wife as to the fact that Larsan has reappeared and that she actually saw him? If you imagine that you can keep her in ignorance for very long, you are greatly mistaken.”
“But,” replied Darzac, “while we were ending our journey, the idea that she had been the victim of a delusion seemed to grow in her mind and by the time we reached Garavan, she seemed to be quite calm.”
“At the time you reached Garavan,” said Rouletabille, quietly, “your wife sent me the telegram I am going to ask you to read.”
And the reporter held out to M. Darzac the paper which bore the two words, “Save us.”
M. Darzac read it with the blood seeming to die away from his face as we looked at him.
“She will go mad again,” was all that he said.
That was what he dreaded—all of us—and, strangely enough, when we arrived at the station of Mentone Garavan and found M. Stangerson and Mme. Darzac (who were awaiting us in spite of the promise which the Professor had made to Arthur Rance not to leave Rochers Rouges nor allow his daughter to do so until we came, for reasons which their host said he would tell them later, not being able to invent them on the spur of the moment) it was with a phrase which seemed the echo of our terror that Mme. Darzac greeted Rouletabille. As soon as she perceived the young man, she rushed toward him and it seemed to us that she was making a great effort not to throw her arms around him. I saw that her spirit was clinging to him as a shipwrecked sailor grips at the hand which is stretched out to save him from drowning. And I heard the words that she whispered to him:
“I know that I am going mad!”