Michaud at last made him hold his tongue.
"The deuce! Allow Madame Raquin to speak," said he. "Speak, my old
friend."
And he gazed at the oilcloth table cover as if he had been listening.
But the fingers of the paralysed woman were growing weary. They had
begun the word more than ten times over, and now, in tracing this word,
they wandered to right and left. Michaud and Olivier bent forward, and
being unable to read, forced the impotent old lady to resume the first
letters.
"Ah! Bravo!" exclaimed Olivier, all at once, "I can read it, this time.
She has just written your name, Therese. Let me see: '_Therese and_----'
Complete the sentence, dear lady."
Therese almost shrieked in anguish. She watched the finger of her aunt
gliding over the oilcloth, and it seemed to her that this finger traced
her name, and the confession of her crime in letters of fire. Laurent
had risen violently, with half a mind to fling himself on the paralysed
woman and break her arm. When he saw this hand return to life to reveal
the murder of Camille, he thought all was lost, and already felt the
weight and frigidity of the knife on the nape of his neck.
Madame Raquin still wrote, but in a manner that became more and more
hesitating.
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