“Yes,” answered he in a choking voice. The murderers shivered, and drawing nearer the fire, extended their hands towards the flame as if an icy puff of wind had suddenly passed through the warm room. For an instant they maintained silence, coiled up like balls, cowering on their chairs. Then Thérèse, in a hollow voice, resumed: “Did he seem to have suffered much?” Laurent could not answer. He made a terrified gesture as if to put aside some hideous vision, and rising went towards the bed. Then, returning violently with open arms, he advanced towards Thérèse. “Kiss me,” said he, extending his neck. Thérèse had risen, looking quite pale in her nightdress, and stood half thrown back, with her elbow resting on the marble mantelpiece. She gazed at the neck of her husband. On the white skin she had just caught sight of a pink spot. The rush of blood to the head, increased the size of this spot, turning it bright red. “Kiss me, kiss me,” repeated Laurent, his face and neck scarlet. The young woman threw her head further back, to avoid an embrace, and pressing the tip of her finger on the bite Camille had given her husband, addressed him thus: “What have you here? I never noticed this wound before.” It seemed to Laurent as if the finger of Thérèse was boring a hole in his throat. At the contact of this finger, he suddenly started backward, uttering a suppressed cry of pain. “That,” he stammered, “that----” He hesitated, but he could not lie, and in spite of himself, he told the truth. “That is the bite Camille gave me. You know, in the boat. It is nothing. It has healed. Kiss me, kiss me.” And the wretch craned his neck which was burning him. He wanted Thérèse to kiss the scar, convinced that the lips of this woman would appease the thousand pricks lacerating his flesh, and with raised chin he presented his extended neck for the embrace. Thérèse, who was almost lying back on the marble chimney-piece, gave a supreme gesture of disgust, and in a supplicating voice exclaimed: “Oh! no, not on that part. There is blood.” She sank down on the low chair, trembling, with her forehead between her hands. Laurent remained where he stood for a moment, looking stupid. Then, all at once, with the clutch of a wild beast, he grasped the head of Thérèse in his two great hands, and by force brought her lips to the bite he had received from Camille on his neck. For an instant he kept, he crushed, this head of a woman against his skin. Thérèse had given way, uttering hollow groans. She was choking on the neck of Laurent. When she had freed herself from his hands, she violently wiped her mouth, and spat in the fire. She had not said a word.