“I don’t know.... I don’t think so,” moaned the young girl.
“Try to remember.... You must remember.... Your safety depends on it!” he cried.
But the very tone of his voice and his frightened tenderness for Clarice exasperated Josephine.
She gripped the young girl’s arm and cried: “Speak! If you don’t——”
Clarice stuttered incoherently. Josephine blew a shrill blast on her whistle.
Almost on the instant Leonard stood on the threshold of the door.
Josephine said, in terrible, inexorable accents: “Take her away, Leonard, and question her!”
Ralph jerked in his bonds and cried furiously: “You coward! You wretch! What are you going to do? Are you really the lowest of women? Leonard, if you touch that child, I swear by God that one day or another——”
“How frightened you are for her!” snarled Josephine. “How the idea of her suffering does upset you! You were certainly born to understand one another, you two.... The daughter of a murderer and a thief! Yes, a thief!” she said, turning to Clarice. “This fine lover of yours is nothing but a thief! He has always made his living by theft. As a child, he was a thief! To give you flowers, to give you that little engagement ring you wear on your finger, he stole! He’s a burglar and a swindler. Why, his very name, that pretty name of Andresy, was simply a theft. Ralph d’Andresy? I should think so! Arsène Lupin, that’s his real name. Keep him, Clarice; he will become famous. Oh, I’ve seen him at work, this lover of yours! A master! A marvel of cunning! What a pretty couple you two will make if I don’t take a hand in the game! What a child of destiny yours will be, son of Arsène Lupin, grandson of Baron Godfrey!”
This idea of their child added flames to her fury. The madness of evil was unchained.