“The matter is,” replied Rouletabille, unable longer to conceal his anguish, “that the poison continues.”
“Does that astonish you?” returned Koupriane. “It doesn’t me.”
Rouletabille looked at him and shook his head. His lips trembled as he said, “I know what you think. It is abominable. But the thing I have done certainly is more abominable still.”
“What have you done, then, Monsieur Rouletabille?”
“Perhaps I have caused the death of an innocent man.”
“So long as you aren’t sure of it, you would better not fret about it, my dear friend.”
“It is enough that the doubt has arisen,” said the reporter, “almost to kill me;” and he heaved so gloomy a sigh that the excellent Monsieur Koupriane felt pity for the lad. He tapped him on the knee.
“Come, come, young man, you ought to know one thing by this time—‘you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs,’ as they say, I think, in Paris.”
Rouletabille turned away from him with horror in his heart. If there should be another, someone besides Michael! If it was another hand than his that appeared to Matrena and him in the mysterious night! If Michael Nikolaievitch had been innocent! Well, he would kill himself, that was all. And those horrible words that he had exchanged with Natacha rose in his memory, singing in his ears as though they would deafen him.
“Do you doubt still?” he had asked her, “that Michael tried to poison your father?”