He remained fascinated for a long time with his eyes fixed upon the blue slipper and the little red stream which touched it. A cold sweat moistened his temples, and his heart beat in his breast as though it would burst.
A host of thoughts and strange and horrible fancies took possession of him, and an inward voice cried out all the time, “In an hour all will be known, and it is your own fault!” Nevertheless, by dint of repeating to himself “Qu’allais-je faire dens cette galere?” he finished up by perceiving some few rays of hope. “If we leave this accursed hotel,” he said to himself at last, “before the discovery of what has happened in the adjoining room, perhaps they may lose trace of us. No one knows us here. I have only been seen in blue spectacles, and she has only been seen in a veil. We are only two steps from the station, and should be far away from it in an hour.”
Then, as he had studied the time-table at great length to make out his journey, he recollected that the train for Paris stopped at eight o’clock. Very soon afterward they would be lost in the vastness of that town, where so many guilty persons are concealed. Who could discover two innocent people there? But would they not go into the Englishman’s room before eight o’clock? That was the vital question.
Quite convinced that there was no other course before him, he made a desperate effort to shake off the torpor which had taken possession of him for so long, but at the first movement he made his young companion woke up and kissed him half-consciously. At the touch of his icy cheek she uttered a little cry.
“What is the matter?” she said to him anxiously. “Your forehead is as cold as marble.”
“It is nothing,” he replied in a voice which belied his words. “I heard a noise in the next room....”
He freed himself from her arms, then he moved the blue slipper and put an armchair in front of the door of communication, so as to hide the horrid liquid from his lover’s eyes. It had stopped flowing, and had now collected into quite a big pool on the floor. Then he half opened the door which led to the passage, and listened attentively. He even ventured to go up to the Englishman’s door, which was closed. There were already stirrings in the hotel, for day had begun. The stablemen were grooming the horses in the yard, and an officer came downstairs from the second story, clinking his spurs. He was on his way to preside at that interesting piece of work, more agreeable to horses than to men, which is technically known as la botte.
Leon re-entered the Blue Chamber, and, with every precaution that love could invent, with the help of much circumlocution and many euphemisms he revealed their situation to his friend.
It was dangerous to stay and dangerous to leave too precipitately; still much more dangerous to wait at the hotel until the catastrophe in the next room was discovered.
There is no need to describe the terror caused by this communication, or the tears which followed it, the senseless suggestions which were advanced, or how many times the two unhappy young people flung themselves into each other’s arms, saying, “Forgive me! forgive me!” Each took the blame. They voiced to die together, for the young woman did not doubt that the law would find them guilty of the murder of the Englishman, and as they were not sure that they would be allowed to embrace each other again on the scaffold they did it now to suffocation, and vied with each other in watering themselves with tears. At length, after having talked much rubbish and exchanged many tender and harrowing words, they decided, in the midst of a thousand kisses, that the plan thought out by Leon, to leave by the eight o’clock train, was really the only one practicable, and the best to follow. But there were still two mortal hours to get through. At each step in the corridor they trembled in every limb. Each creak of boots proclaimed the arrival of the inspector.