"Fantômas! Ah, I scarcely dare utter that name. And yet a doubt oppresses my heart! Tell me, are you not, yourself—Fantômas?"
Chaleck freed himself gently, for Lady Beltham had wound her arms round his neck.
"I know nothing, I am merely the lover who loves you."
"Then let us go far away. Let us begin a new existence together. Will you? Come!" She stopped all at once—"I heard a noise." Chaleck, too, listened. Some slight creakings had, indeed, disturbed the hush of the room. But outside the wind and the rain whirled around the dilapidated, lonely abode, and it was not surprising that unaccountable sounds should be audible in the stillness. Once more Lady Beltham built up her plans, catching a glimpse of a future all peace and happiness.
With a brief, harsh remark, Chaleck brought her back to reality.
"All that cannot be, at least for the moment, we must first——"
Lady Beltham laid her hand on his lips.
"Do not speak!" she begged. "A fresh crime—that's what you mean?"
"A vengeance, an execution! A man has set himself to run me down, has determined my ruin: between us it is a struggle without quarter; my life is not safe but at the cost of his, so he must perish. In four days they will find Detective Juve dead in his own bed. And with him will finally vanish the fiction he has evoked of Fantômas! Fantômas! Ah, if society knew—if humanity, instead of being what it is—but it matters little!"
"And Fantômas? What will become of him—of you?"