"There's . . . Ser . . . Sernine."
"Sernine! . . . Eh, what?"
"Sernine . . . Lenormand. . . ."
M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.
"No, no, it's not possible," he muttered. "This is madness."
He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.
Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:
"Explain the thing to us. . . . What's at the bottom of it? What mystery?"
The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.
M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said: