Gabriel confessed:
"I'm frightened also."
"Still ... still," she stammered, "it's got to be done.... I swore it...."
Making one last effort, she returned to Lupin and gasped his neck with her stiff fingers. But Lupin, who was watching her pallid face, received a very clear sensation that she would not have the courage to kill him. To her he was becoming something sacred, invulnerable. A mysterious power was protecting him against every attack, a power which had already saved him three times by inexplicable means and which would find other means to protect him against the wiles of death.
She said to him, in a hoarse voice:
"How you must be laughing at me!"
"Not at all, upon my word. I should feel frightened myself, in your place."
"Nonsense, you scum of the earth! You imagine that you will be rescued ... that your friends are waiting outside? It's out of the question, my fine fellow."
"I know. It's not they defending me ... nobody's defending me...."
"Well, then?..."