ne.

This was his strong point, this power to work, that was never disturbed
or weakened by anything; not by pleasure or pain, by preoccupation or by
misery. In the street he could think of Phillis, be he hungry or sleepy;
at his desk he had no thought of Phillis, neither of hunger nor of sleep,
no cares, no memories; his work occupied him entirely.

It was his strength, and also his pride, the only superiority of which he
boasted; for although he knew that he had others, he never spoke of them,
while he often said to his comrades:

"I work when I will and as much as I wish. My will never weakens when I
am at work."

This evening he worked for about an hour, in his usual condition of mind;
neither sheriffs, nor Jardine, nor Caffie troubled him. But having to
draw upon his memory for certain facts, he found that it did not obey him
as usual; there were a hesitation, a fogginess, above all, extraordinary
wanderings. He wrestled with it and it obeyed, but only for a short time,
and soon again it betrayed him a second time, then a third and fourth
time.

Decidedly he was not in a normal state, and his will obeyed in place of
commanding.

There were a name and a phrase that recurred to him mechanically from
time to time. The name was Caffie, and the phrase was, "Nothing easier."

Why should this hypothesis to strangle Caffie, of which he had lightly
spoken, and to which he had attached no importance at the moment when he
uttered it, return to him in this way as a sort of obsession?

Was it not strange?

Never, until this day, had he had an idea that he could strangle a man,
even as wicked as this one, and yet, in talking of it, he found very
natural and legitimate reasons for the murder of this scamp.

Had not Phillis herself condemned him?

To tell the truth, she had added that Providence or justice should be his
executor, but this was the scruple of a simple conscience, formed in a
narrow environment, to which influence he would not submit.

Had he these scruples, this old man who coldly, and merely for the
interest of so much a hundred on a dot, advised him to hasten the death
of a woman by drunkenness, and that of an infant in any way he pleased?

When he reached this conclusion he stopped, and asked himself whether he
were mad to pursue this idea; then immediately, to get rid of it, he set
to work, which absorbed him for a certain time, but not so long a time as
at first.

Then, finding that he could no