He rushed toward her, in a state of intense excitement:
"You know him? Who was he? Who is he? Who is he? And why did you not tell me? Where have you known him? Speak . . . answer. . . . I implore you. . . ."
"No," she said.
"But you must, you must. . . . Think! Louis de Malreich! The murderer! The monster! . . . Why did you not tell me?"
She, in turn, placed her hands on Lupin's shoulders and, in a firm voice, declared:
"Listen, you must never ask me, because I shall never tell. . . . It is a secret which I shall take with me to the grave. . . . Come what may, no one will ever know, no one in the wide world, I swear it!"
He stood before her for some minutes, anxiously, with a confused brain.
He remembered Steinweg's silence and the old man's terror when Lupin asked him to reveal the terrible secret. Dolores also knew and she also refused to speak.
He went out without a word.