n he was about to play the
double-six. Since the impotent woman had been struck down, she had never
moved her hands.

"Hey! Just look, Therese," cried Michaud. "Madame Raquin is agitating
her fingers. She probably wants something."

Therese could not reply. Both she and Laurent had been following the
exertion of the paralysed woman, and she was now looking at the hand
of her aunt, which stood out wan in the raw light of the lamp, like
an avenging hand that was about to speak. The two murderers waited,
breathless.

"Of course," said Grivet, "she wants something. Oh! We thoroughly
understand one another. She wants to play dominoes. Eh! Isn't it so,
dear lady?"

Madame Raquin made a violent sign indicating that she wanted nothing of
the kind. She extended one finger, folded up the others with infinite
difficulty, and began to painfully trace letters on the table cover.
She had barely indicated a stroke or two, when Grivet again exclaimed in
triumph:

"I understand; she says I do right to play the double-six."

The impotent woman cast a terrible glance at the old clerk, and returned
to the word she wished to write. But Grivet interrupted her at every
moment, declaring it was needless, that he understood, and he then
brought out some stupidity. 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 man