“I will get well.... I will get well....”
And he lay for days on end without moving, so as not to disturb the dressing of his wound nor increase the excitement of his nerves in the smallest degree.
He also strove not to think of Daubrecq. But the image of his dire adversary haunted him; and he reconstituted the various phases of the escape, the descent of the cliff.... One day, struck by a terrible memory, he exclaimed:
“The list! The list of the Twenty-seven! Daubrecq must have it by now . . . or else d’Albufex. It was on the table!”
Clarisse reassured him:
“No one can have taken it,” she declared. “The Growler was in Paris that same day, with a note from me for Prasville, entreating him to redouble his watch in the Square Lamartine, so that no one should enter, especially d’Albufex....”
“But Daubrecq?”
“He is wounded. He cannot have gone home.”
“Ah, well,” he said, “that’s all right!... But you too were wounded....”
“A mere scratch on the shoulder.”