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Domini saw the Count compress his lips. Then he turned to Androvsky and said: "Do you think so, Monsieur?" It was a definite, a resolute attempt to draw his guest into the conversation. Androvsky could not ignore it. He looked up reluctantly from his plate. His eyes met Domini's, but immediately travelled away from them. "I doubt " he said.
When it ceased she whispered to herself, "Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis." And with these words upon her lips towards dawn she fell asleep. They had dined upstairs in the little room that had formerly been Domini's salon, and had not seen Father Roubier, who always came to the hotel to take his evening meal. In the morning, after they had breakfasted, Androvsky said: "Domini, I will go.
She yielded, snatched the earrings with an eager, gave up the cross and chain with a reluctant, hand. Domini's fingers closed round the wet gold. She threw some coins across the stream on to the bank, and turned away, thrusting the cross into her bosom. And she felt at that moment as if she had saved a sacred thing from outrage.
Those who were here before me have had time to get up a theory, and if I don't adopt it at once, there is the deuce to pay!" M. Domini's voice was heard in the entry, calling out to his clerk.
He was talking to a little boy, but keeping a wary eye on the street, and he came out quickly, beckoning with his long hands, and calling softly, in a half-chuckling and yet authoritative voice: "Venez, Madame, venez! Come! come!" Suzanne seized Domini's arm. "Not to-night!" Domini called out. "Yes, Madame, to-night. The vie of Madame is there in the sand to-night. Je la vois, je la vois.
M. Domini's slight shrug of the shoulders did not escape the detective, but he calmly continued: "More; I am sure that Monsieur Domini will not permit me to leave his cabinet without a warrant to arrest Count Hector de Tremorel, whom at present he thinks to be dead." "Possibly," said M. Domini. "Proceed."
Androvsky's voice sounded to him hard and cold as ice when it replied, and suddenly he thought of the storm as raging in some northern land over snowbound wastes whose scanty trees were leafless. But Domini's voice was clear, and warm as the sun that would shine again over the desert when the storm was past.
Little by little M. Domini's conviction was formed and confirmed. An inquest of this sort is not so difficult as may be imagined. The difficulty is to seize at the beginning; in the entangled skein, the main thread, which must lead to the truth through all the mazes, the ruses, silence, falsehoods of the guilty. M. Domini was certain that he held this precious thread.
"Put my love to the proof, O God!" was Domini's last prayer that night when the storm was at its wildest. "Put my love to the uttermost proof that he may know it, as he can never know it otherwise." And she fell asleep at length, peacefully, in the tumult of the night, feeling that God had heard her prayer.
The darkness began to fade, and presently, as the grey light grew slowly stronger, the rain ceased, and it was possible to see through the glass of the carriage window. The country began to discover itself, as if timidly, to Domini's eyes. She had recently noticed that the train was going very slowly, and she could now see why. They were mounting a steep incline.
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