Ralph listened and heard nothing. But perhaps Beaumagnan, whose senses had been rendered extraordinarily acute by his emotions, heard Josephine coming. As a matter of fact, he drew back a step or two and then with a rush took up his post in the recess to the right of the door.
Ralph had a good view of his face. It was hideous. He looked for all the world like a sportsman practising bringing his gun to his shoulder in order to get the stiffness out of his arms and bring it up quickly when the time came to shoot. So Beaumagnan’s hands were moving in the gestures necessary to the crime. They kept opening for the strangling, moved to a suitable distance from one another, and closed their curved fingers like talons.
Ralph was panic-stricken. His impotence was terrible; it was a veritable martyrdom.
Though he was well aware that any movement was useless, he struggled to break his bonds. If only he had been able to call out to warn her! But the gag smothered his cries and the bonds cut into his flesh.
Outside the deep silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. The gate grated on its hinges, a petticoat rustled among the tall weeds, a foot crunched the pebbles.
Beaumagnan, flattened against the wall, raised his forearms; his hands, trembling like the hands of a skeleton shaken by the wind, seemed already to be closing round a neck and to be gripping it, all alive and throbbing.
Ralph moaned behind his gag.
And then the door opened and the scene was played.
It was played exactly in the manner in which Beaumagnan had planned and Ralph pictured to himself. The figure of Josephine Balsamo stepped over the threshold and on the instant was crushed down in Beaumagnan’s rush. A feeble moan from her was drowned by a kind of furious baying which poured from the assassin’s throat.
Ralph groaned. Never had he loved Josephine so dearly as at the moment in which he saw her in her death agony. Her faults? Her crimes? What did they matter? She was the most beautiful creature in the world and all that beauty, that adorable smile, that charming body, made for all the caresses, were about to be annihilated. No help was possible. No force could avail against the irresistible strength of this brute.