Fauville looked at his watch.
"A quarter past ten: bedtime. I am exceedingly tired, and you will excuse me"
It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them good-night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he shook with fever and anguish.
"What's the matter?" asked Perenna.
"I'm frightened! I'm frightened!" he said.
"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with distorted featurs, stammering:
"If there were ten of you—if there were twenty of you with me, you need not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector Vérot—they will kill me—and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards! My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!"
He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:
"O God, have pity on me! I can't die! I can't let my son die! Have pity on me, I beseech Thee!"
