"No, to-day," she insisted. "I feel a need to tell you at once what I have to say. Nothing will do more to restore my peace of mind. Listen to me. . . ." She did not have to entreat me long. How could I have wearied of looking at her and listening to her? We had been through such trials when separated from each other that I was afraid, after all, of being parted from her now. She put her arm round my neck. Her beautiful lips were quivering beneath my eyes. Seeing my gaze fixed upon them, she smiled: "You remember, in the Yard . . . the first time. . . . From that day, I hated you . . . and adored you. . . . I was your enemy . . . and your slave. . . . Yes, all my independent and rather wild nature was up in arms at not being able to shake off a recollection which gave me so much pain . . . and so much pleasure! . . . I was mastered. I ran away from you. I kept on coming back to you . . . and I should have come back altogether, if that man--you know whom I mean--had not spoken to me one morning. . . ." "Velmot! What did he come for? What did he want?" "He came from my father. What he wanted, as I perceived later, was through me to enter into Noël Dorgeroux's life and rob him of the secret of his invention." "Why did you not warn me?" "From the first moment, Velmot asked me to be silent. Later, he commanded it." "You ought not to have obeyed him. . . ." "Had I committed the least indiscretion, he would have killed you. I loved you. I was afraid; and I was all the more afraid because Velmot persecuted me with a love which my hatred for him merely stimulated. How could I doubt that his threat was seriously meant? From that time onward, I was caught in the wheels of the machine. What with one lie and another, I became his accomplice . . . or rather their accomplice, for my father joined him in the course of the winter. Oh, the torture of it! That man who loved me . . . and that contemptible father! . . . I lived a life of horror . . . always hoping that they would grow tired because their machinations were leading to nothing." "And what about my letters from Grenoble? And my uncle's fears?" "Yes, I know, my uncle often mentioned them to me; and, without revealing the plot to him, I myself put him on his guard. It was at my request that he sent you that report which was stolen. Only, he never anticipated murder. Theft, yes; and, notwithstanding the watch which I maintained, I could see that I was doing no good, that my father made his way into the Lodge at night, that he had at his disposal methods of which I knew nothing. But between that and murder, assassination! No, no, a daughter cannot believe such things." "So, on the Sunday, when Velmot came to fetch you at the Lodge while Noël Dorgeroux was out . . . ?"