for
many days, besides carrots for the rabbits.

"What a good heart you have!" he said.

"Because I think of the rabbits?"

"Because of your tenderness and thoughtfulness."

"I wish I could do something for you!"

As soon as she was gone he seated himself at his desk and began to work,
anxious to make up for the time that he had given to sentiment. The fact
that his work might not be of use to him, and that his experiments
might be rudely interrupted the next morning or in a few days, was not a
sufficient reason for being idle. He had work to do, and he worked as
if with the certitude that he would pass his examinations, and that
his experiments of four years past would have a good ending, without
interference from any one.

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