"Speak, Isilda. . . . Have you seen anything? Have you anything to say?"
The girl had stopped; her eyes were less vacant, as though lighted up by the pain. She uttered sounds. . . . but not a word.
"Listen," said Lupin. "Answer yes or no . . . make a movement of the head . . . Have you seen him? Do you know where he is? . . . You know who he is. . . . Listen! if you don't answer. . . ."
He suppressed a gesture of anger. But, suddenly, remembering the experiment of the day before and that she seemed rather to have retained a certain optical memory of the time when she enjoyed her full reason, he wrote on the white wall a capital "L" and "M."
She stretched out her arm toward the letters and nodded her head as though in assent.
"And then?" said Lupin. "What then? . . . Write something yourself."
But she gave a fearful scream and flung herself to the ground, yelling.
Then, suddenly, came silence, immobility. One last convulsive spasm. And she moved no more.
"Dead?" asked the Emperor.
"Poisoned, Sire."