Roubaud, with a jerk, raised Séverine into a sitting posture, setting her back against the bedstead. Then, still on his knees, weighing down on her shoulders, he could at last speak. He had ceased beating her; he tortured her with questions. She wept. She was so upset that she could not utter a word; and, raising his hand, he half stunned her with a blow from his palm. Three times, at intervals, receiving no answer, he slapped her face. Why should she struggle any longer? She was already half dead. He would have torn out her heart with those horny fingers of a former workman. And so, the cross-examination proceeded, with the threatening fist uplifted, ready to strike if she hesitated in her replies. All at once he shook her, and inquired with an oath: "Why did you marry me? Don't you know it was infamous to deceive me in this manner? There are thieves in prison, who have not half what you have on their conscience. So you despised me? You were not in love with me? Eh! why did you marry me?" She gave a vague gesture. She did not exactly know, now. She was happy to marry him, hoping to get rid of the other. There are so many things one would rather not do, and which one does, because they are after all the wisest. No, she did not love him; and she carefully avoided telling him that had it not been for this business, never would she have consented to become his wife. Séverine, by an effort, had risen to her feet. With a vigour that was extraordinary in such a weak, vanquished creature, she had thrust Roubaud from her. And as she freed her hand he felt the ring, the little golden serpent with the ruby head, forgotten on her finger. He tore it off, crushed it beneath his heel in another fit of rage. Then he began striding up and down, from one end of the room to the other, mute and distracted. She sank down, seated at the edge of the bed, staring at him with her great fixed eyes. And a terrible silence ensued. The fury of Roubaud was not calmed. No sooner did it seem to moderate a little, than it returned at once in great waves of increased volume, which bore him along in their vertiginous flood. No longer under self-control, he struck about in space, a victim to all the gusts of the violent tempest lacerating him, only to awaken to the imperative necessity of appeasing the howling brute within him. It was a physical, an immediate necessity, a thirst for vengeance that wrung his body, and which would leave him no repose until it had been satisfied. Without stopping in his walk, he struck his temples with his two fists, and he stammered out in a voice of anguish: "What shall I do?"