Once more his feet began to pace mechanically the tiled floor. He was walking up and down without knowing it; he was going to kill without knowing it, like a drunken man. His arms outstretched themselves. His clenched fists moved forward like two battering rams that a slow, continuous, and irresistible force would have thrust against the young man’s bosom. A few more steps, and Ralph would be dangling in the abyss. He shut his eyes. However, he was not in the slightest degree resigned and tried hard to retain a vestige of hope. “The rope will break,” he thought, “and there will be thick grass for me to fall on. Truly it is not the fate of Monsieur Arsène Lupin d’Andresy to be hung. If, at my age, I have no chance of getting out of such a hole as this, it must be that the gods have no intention of taking a real interest in me. In that case there is nothing to regret.” He thought of his father and of the instruction in gymnastics he had had from Theophrastus Lupin.... He murmured the name of Clarice. However, the blow did not come. Even as he felt him within striking distance, it seemed that his adversary stopped in his spring. He opened his eyes. Beaumagnan, drawn up to his full height, was towering above him. But he did not move; his arms had fallen; and on his face, on which the thought of murder had impressed the most abominable expression, the decision seemed to be suspended. Ralph listened and heard nothing. But perhaps Beaumagnan, whose senses had been rendered extraordinarily acute by his emotions, heard Josephine coming. As a matter of fact, he drew back a step or two and then with a rush took up his post in the recess to the right of the door. Ralph had a good view of his face. It was hideous. He looked for all the world like a sportsman practising bringing his gun to his shoulder in order to get the stiffness out of his arms and bring it up quickly when the time came to shoot. So Beaumagnan’s hands were moving in the gestures necessary to the crime. They kept opening for the strangling, moved to a suitable distance from one another, and closed their curved fingers like talons. Ralph was panic-stricken. His impotence was terrible; it was a veritable martyrdom. Though he was well aware that any movement was useless, he struggled to break his bonds. If only he had been able to call out to warn her! But the gag smothered his cries and the bonds cut into his flesh. Outside the deep silence was broken by the sound of footsteps. The gate grated on its hinges, a petticoat rustled among the tall weeds, a foot crunched the pebbles. Beaumagnan, flattened against the wall, raised his forearms; his hands, trembling like the hands of a skeleton shaken by the wind, seemed already to be closing round a neck and to be gripping it, all alive and throbbing. Ralph moaned behind his gag. And then the door opened and the scene was played.