leaving but few traces behind. And Laurent said to
himself, that this was the poison he required. On the morrow, succeeding
in escaping the vigilance of Therese, he paid his friend a visit, and
while he had his back turned, stole the small stoneware flagon.

The same day, Therese took advantage of the absence of Laurent, to send
the large kitchen knife, with which they were in the habit of breaking
the loaf sugar, and which was very much notched, to be sharpened. When
it came back, she hid it in a corner of the sideboard.

CHAPTER XXXII

The following Thursday, the evening party at the Raquins, as the guests
continued to term the household of their hosts, was particularly merry.
It was prolonged until half-past eleven, and as Grivet withdrew, he
declared that he had never passed such a pleasant time.

Suzanne, who was not very well, never ceased talking to Therese of her
pain and joy. Therese appeared to listen to her with great interest,
her eyes fixed, her lips pinched, her head, at moments, bending forward;
while her lowering eyelids cast a cloud over the whole of her face.

Laurent, for his part, gave uninterrupted attention to the tales of old
Michaud and Olivier. These gentlemen never paused, and it was only with
difficulty that Grivet succeeded in getting in a word edgeways between
a couple of sentences of father and son. He had a certain respect
for these two men whom he considered good talkers. On that particular
evening, a gossip having taken the place of the usual game, he naively
blurted out that the conversation of the former commissary of police
amused him almost as much as dominoes.

During the four years, or thereabouts, that the Michauds and Grivet had
been in the habit of passing the Thursday evenings at the Raquins', they
had not once felt fatigued at these monotonous evenings that returned
with enervating regularity. Never had they for an instant suspected the
drama that was being performed in this house, so peaceful and harmonious
when they entered it. Olivier, with the jest of a person connected with
the police, was in the habit of remarking that the dining-room savoured
of the honest man. Grivet, so as to have his say, had called the place
the Temple of Peace.

Latterly, on two or three different occasions, Therese explained the
bruises disfiguring her face, by telling the guests she had fallen down.
But none of them, for that matter, would have recognised the marks of
the fist of Laur