She got up, opened the window, and felt the chill of dawn. Why not escape? She had only to get out of the window. Would they pursue her? Would they again deliver her up to justice? It was a risk worth taking. Anything was better than the interminable agony. Thérèse had already drawn up a chair against the window. But she had no money; thousands of pines were hers, but they were useless: she could not touch a penny except through Bernard. She could do nothing but take to the moors, as Daguerre had done, that hunted murderer for whom Thérèse as a child had felt so much pity. (She remembered the gendarmes whom Balionte had entertained in the kitchen at Argelouse)--and it was the Desqueyroux dog who had got on the poor wretch’s track. He had been picked up half-dead with hunger in the heather; and Thérèse had seen him lying bound in a haycart. He was said to have died on the ship before he reached Cayenne. A ship ... a convict settlement.... They were quite capable of giving her up, as they had said. That evidence that Bernard pretended he had,--it was a lie, no doubt; unless he had discovered that package of poisons in the pocket of the old cloak. Thérèse decided to make certain. She felt her way to the staircase: as she went up it she saw more clearly, the light of dawn was shining through the windows above her. There, on the attic landing, was the cupboard where the old clothes were hanging,--the ones that never appeared, because they were only used during the shooting season. There was a deep pocket in that faded mantle: Aunt Clara used to put her knitting in it in the times when she also used to go out and watch for the pigeons to come over. Thérèse slipped her hand into it and drew out the packet sealed with wax: Chloroform: 10 grammes. Aconitine: 2 grammes. Digitaline: 20 centigrammes.