“Well, yes, I wished to say this to you: Don’t write to me any more. Don’t speak to me. Don’t see me. Go away from here, monsieur; go away. They will have your life. And if you have found out anything, forget it. Ah, on the head of your mother, forget it, or you are lost. That is what I wished to tell you. And now, you go.”
She grasped his hand in a quick sympathetic movement that she seemed instantly to regret.
“You go away,” she repeated.
Rouletabille still held his place before her. She turned from him; she did not wish to hear anything further.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “you are watched closer than ever. Who will take Michael Nikolaievitch’s place?”
“Madman, be silent! Hush!”
“I am here.”
He said this with such simple bravery that tears sprang to her eyes.
“Dear man! Poor man! Dear brave man!” She did not know what to say. Her emotion checked all utterance. But it was necessary for her to enable him to understand that there was nothing he could do to help her in her sad straits.
“No. If they knew what you have just said, what you have proposed now, you would be dead to-morrow. Don’t let them suspect. And above all, don’t try to see me anywhere. Go back to papa at once. We have been here too long. What if they learn of it?—and they learn everything! They are everywhere, and have ears everywhere.”