Jacques and Séverine, pulled up short in their race, no longer moved. Chance had placed them right at the angle of the heap of coal. They pressed their backs so closely to it that they seemed to form part of the black mass. There, without a breath, they watched Roubaud advancing towards them. They were barely separated from him by thirty yards. Each stride lessened the distance, regularly, as if timed by the inexorable pendulum of destiny. Another twenty, another ten paces, and Jacques would have the man before him. He would raise his arm in such a manner and plunge the knife in the throat of Roubaud, drawing it from right to left so as to stifle his shriek. The seconds seemed interminable. Such a flood of thoughts ran through the blank in his skull that the measure of time no longer existed. All the reasons that had brought him to his determination filed past once more. He again distinctly saw the murder, the causes and the consequences. Another five steps. His resolution, strained fit to break, remained firm. He wanted to kill; he knew why he would kill. But at two paces, at one pace, came a downfall; everything gave way within him at a single stroke. No, no! he would not, he could not kill a defenceless man in this way. Reasoning would never suffice for murder; it required the instinct to bite, the spring that sends the destroyer on the prey, the hunger or passion that makes him tear it to pieces. What matter if conscience were merely made up of ideas transmitted by a slow heredity of justice! He did not feel that he had the right to kill, and do what he would, he was unable to persuade himself that he could take it. Roubaud passed slowly by. His elbow almost grazed the other two in the coal. A breath would have betrayed them; but they remained as dead. The arm did not rise; it did not plunge in the knife. No quiver disturbed the dense obscurity, not even a shudder. Roubaud was already far, ten paces off; but they were still standing there motionless, their backs riveted to the black heap. Both were without breath, in terror of this man, alone and unarmed, who had just brushed past them so peacefully. Jacques, choking with rage and shame, gave a sob. "I cannot do it! I cannot do it!" he repeated. He wanted to take Séverine to him again, to press against her, with the desire to be excused and consoled. She escaped without a word. He had stretched out his hands, but only to catch her skirt, which slipped from his fingers; and he heard nothing, save her light, fleeting footsteps. Her sudden disappearance completely undid him, and he pursued her for an instant or two; but in vain. Was she then so very angry at his weakness? Did she despise him? Prudence prevented him rejoining her. When he found himself alone on this extensive flat land, studded with small yellow flames of gas, he felt overwhelmed with despair, and hastened to leave it, to go and bury his head in his pillow, there to forget the abomination of his existence.