“And you saw him again?” he asked.
“I saw him again. I had to. My husband was dead, but his honour remained untouched. Nobody suspected the truth. In order at least to defend the name which he left me, I accepted my first interview with Daubrecq.”
“Your first, yes, for there have been others.”
“Many others,” she said, in a strained voice, “yes, many others . . . at the theatre . . . or in the evening, at Enghien . . . or else in Paris, at night . . . for I was ashamed to meet that man and I did not want people to know it.... But it was necessary.... A duty more imperative than any other commanded it: the duty of avenging my husband....”
She bent over Lupin and, eagerly:
“Yes, revenge has been the motive of my conduct and the sole preoccupation of my life. To avenge my husband, to avenge my ruined son, to avenge myself for all the harm that he has done me: I had no other dream, no other object in life. That is what I wanted: to see that man crushed, reduced to poverty, to tears—as though he still knew how to cry!—sobbing in the throes of despair....”
“You wanted his death,” said Lupin, remembering the scene between them in Daubrecq’s study.
“No, not his death. I have often thought of it, I have even raised my arm to strike him, but what would have been the good? He must have taken his precautions. The paper would remain. And then there is no revenge in killing a man.... My hatred went further than that.... It demanded his ruin, his downfall; and, to achieve that, there was but one way: to cut his claws. Daubrecq, deprived of the document that gives him his immense power, ceases to exist. It means immediate bankruptcy and disaster . . . under the most wretched conditions. That is what I have sought.”
“But Daubrecq must have been aware of your intentions?”
“Certainly. And, I assure you, those were strange meetings of ours: I watching him closely, trying to guess his secret behind his actions and his words, and he . . . he....”