“And you did not ask her for any explanation of the pistol shot nor of the death cry—the cry that was the echo of the one which we heard two years ago from her lips in the ‘inexplicable gallery’?”
“Sainclair, you are too curious—you are more curious than I. I asked her nothing.”
“And you swore to see nothing and to hear nothing without her saying anything to you about the pistol shot and the cry?”
“Truly, Sainclair, it was necessary for me to believe—for my part, I respected the secrets of the Lady in Black. I had nothing to ask of her when she said to me, ‘We must leave each other now, my child, but nothing can ever separate us again!’”
“Ah, she said that to you—‘Nothing can ever separate us again’?”
“Yes, my friend—and there was blood upon her hands.”
We looked at each other in silence. I was now at the window and beside the reporter. Suddenly his hand touched mine. Then he pointed to the little taper which was burning at the entrance to the subterranean door which led to Old Bob’s study in the Tower of the Bold.
“It is dawn,” said Rouletabille. “And Old Bob is still at work. This old fellow is certainly industrious and we will go and have a peep at him at his labors. That will change our current of thought and I shall be able to get away from these horrors that are smothering me and driving me half wild.”
And he heaved a long sigh.
“Will Darzac never return!” he murmured, more as though he were speaking to himself than to me.