“What do you mean to convey? According to you, is there nothing to hope for on that side? Is there not a single means of attaining our end?”
“Yes,” she murmured, “there is one, one only....”
He noticed her pallor before she had time to hide her face between her hands again. And again a feverish shiver shook her frame.
He seemed to understand the reason of her dismay; and, bending toward her, touched by her grief:
“Please,” he said, “please answer me openly and frankly. It’s for Gilbert’s sake, is it not? Though the police, fortunately, have not been able to solve the riddle of his past, though the real name of Vaucheray’s accomplice has not leaked out, there is one man, at least, who knows it: isn’t that so? Daubrecq has recognized your son Antoine, through the alias of Gilbert, has he not?”
“Yes, yes....”
“And he promises to save him, doesn’t he? He offers you his freedom, his release, his escape, his life: that was what he offered you, was it not, on the night in his study, when you tried to stab him?”
“Yes . . . yes . . . that was it....”
“And he makes one condition, does he not? An abominable condition, such as would suggest itself to a wretch like that? I am right, am I not?”
Clarisse did not reply. She seemed exhausted by her protracted struggle with a man who was gaining ground daily and against whom it was impossible for her to fight. Lupin saw in her the prey conquered in advance, delivered to the victor’s whim. Clarisse Mergy, the loving wife of that Mergy whom Daubrecq had really murdered, the terrified mother of that Gilbert whom Daubrecq had led astray, Clarisse Mergy, to save her son from the scaffold, must, come what may and however ignominious the position, yield to Daubrecq’s wishes. She would be the mistress, the wife, the obedient slave of Daubrecq, of that monster with the appearance and the ways of a wild beast, that unspeakable person of whom Lupin could not think without revulsion and disgust.