"'Go on! Go on!' exclaimed my husband with two frightful oaths. And I hardly remember what followed. The lights at Barentin were drawing near, the locomotive whistled. My last sensation was one of being dragged along, carried anyhow, caught up by the hair. My husband must have grasped hold of me, opened the door over my shoulder, and thrown me into the compartment. I was reclining breathless and half fainting in a corner when we stopped; and, without making a movement, I heard my husband exchange a few words with the station-master. Then, when the train went on again, he sank down on the seat, exhausted also. Between Barentin and Havre neither of us said a word. Oh! I hate him! I hate him, for all those abominations he made me suffer!" "And so you sank down on his legs, and felt him dying?" inquired Jacques. The unknown was being revealed to him. A ferocious wave ascended from his inside, filling his head with a crimson vision. His curiosity about the murder returned. "And then, the knife, you felt the knife go in?" he continued. "Yes, with a thud," she answered. "Ah! a thud," said he, "not a rip; you are sure of that?" "No, no," she replied; "nothing but a shock." "And then, he quivered, eh?" he suggested. "Yes; he gave three twitches from top to toe, and they lasted so long that I even felt them in his feet," she said. "And those twitches stiffened him, did they not?" he persisted. "Yes," she answered. "The first was very long, the other two weaker." "And then he died?" he continued. "And what effect did it have on you, when you felt him expire under the knife?" "On me? Oh! I don't know," she said. "You don't know! Why tell stories?" he asked her. "Describe to me, describe to me your feeling, quite frankly. Was it pain?" "No, no, not pain," said she. "Pleasure?" he inquired. "Pleasure!" she answered, "Ah! no, not pleasure!" "What then, my love?" he urged. "I implore you to tell me all. If you only knew----Tell me what one feels." "Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "How is it possible to describe it? It is frightful. You are borne away. Oh! so far, so far! I lived longer in that one minute than in all my previous life." The crimson reflex had disappeared from the ceiling, and the fire had died out. The room became cooler in the intense cold outside. Not a sound ascended from Paris, padded with snow. For a moment, the newsvendor in the adjoining room, could be heard snoring, and then the whole house subsided into complete silence. Séverine had succumbed to invincible slumber. The cuckoo clock had just struck three.