But she could not follow his thoughts any further. She wished absolutely to make her way into Natacha’s chamber. The obsession of that was upon her.
“If you enter there,” said he, “and if (as is most probable) you don’t find what you seek there, all is lost! And as to me, I give up the whole thing.”
She sank in a heap onto a chair.
“Don’t despair,” he murmured. “We don’t know for sure yet.”
She shook her poor old head dejectedly.
“We know that only she is here, since no one has been able to enter and since no one has been able to leave.”
That, in truth, filled her brain, prevented her from discerning in any corner of her mind the thought of Rouletabille. Then the impossible dialogue resumed.
“I repeat that we do not know but that the person has gone,” repeated the reporter, and demanded her keys.
“Foolish,” she said. “What do you want them for?”
“To search outside as we have searched inside.”