With his free hand, he stroked her hair and forehead with infinite gentleness; and, under his caress, she gradually relaxed her tense nerves and became calmer and quieter.
Then he looked at her again and long, long asked himself what there could be behind that fair, white brow, what secret was ravaging that mysterious soul. She also was afraid. But of whom? Against whom was she imploring him to protect her?
Once again, he was obsessed by the image of the man in black, by that Louis de Malreich, the sinister and incomprehensible enemy, whose attacks he had to ward off without knowing whence they came or even if they were taking place.
He was in prison, watched day and night. Tush! Did Lupin not know by his own experience that there are beings for whom prison does not exist and who throw off their chains at the given moment? And Louis de Malreich was one of those.
Yes, there was some one in the Santé prison, in the condemned man's cell. But it might be an accomplice or some victim of Malreich . . . while Malreich himself prowled around Bruggen Castle, slipped in under cover of the darkness, like an invisible spectre, made his way into the chalet in the park and, at night, raised his dagger against Lupin asleep and helpless.
And it was Louis de Malreich who terrorized Dolores, who drove her mad with his threats, who held her by some dreadful secret and forced her into silence and submission.
And Lupin imagined the enemy's plan: to throw Dolores, scared and trembling, into Pierre Leduc's arms, to make away with him, Lupin, and to reign in his place, over there, with the grand-duke's power and Dolores's millions.
It was a likely supposition, a certain supposition, which fitted in with the facts and provided a solution of all the problems.
"Of all?" thought Lupin. "Yes. . . . But then, why did he not kill me, last night, in the chalet? He had but to wish . . . and he did not wish. One movement and I was dead. He did not make that movement. Why?"
Dolores opened her eyes, saw him and smiled, with a pale smile: