“This is what I propose . . . what must be . . . what shall be.... I will ask, or rather I will demand, not Gilbert’s pardon, to begin with, but a reprieve, a postponement of the execution, a postponement of three or four weeks. They will invent a pretext of some sort: that’s not my affair. And, when Mme. Mergy has become Mme. Daubrecq, then and not till then will I ask for his pardon, that is to say, the commutation of his sentence. And make yourself quite easy: they’ll grant it.”
“I accept.... I accept,” she stammered.
He laughed once more:
“Yes, you accept, because that will happen in a month’s time . . . and meanwhile you reckon on finding some trick, an assistance of some kind or another . . . M. Arsène Lupin....”
“I swear it on the head of my son.”
“The head of your son!... Why, my poor pet, you would sell yourself to the devil to save it from falling!...”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered, shuddering. “I would gladly sell my soul!”
He sidled up against her and, in a low voice:
“Clarisse, it’s not your soul I ask for.... It’s something else.... For more than twenty years my life has spun around that longing. You are the only woman I have ever loved.... Loathe me, hate me—I don’t care—but do not spurn me.... Am I to wait? To wait another month?... No, Clarisse, I have waited too many years already....”
He ventured to touch her hand. Clarisse shrank back with such disgust that he was seized with fury and cried: