ly. Subsequent to that
catastrophe, and in order to prevent the like of it from ever occurring
again, the trap had been surrounded by a balustrade with a gate, in
such wise that a fall became impossible unless one should open the gate
expressly to take a plunge. At that moment the trap was lowered and the
gate was closed, and Morange, yielding to some superior force, bent over
the cavity, shuddering. The whole scene of long ago rose up before him;
he was again in the depths of that frightful void; he could see the
crushed corpse; and he could feel the gust of terror chilling him in
the presence of murder, accepted and concealed. Since he suffered so
dreadfully, since he could no longer sleep, since he had promised his
dear dead ones that he would join them, why should he not make an end
of himself? Two days previously, while leaning over the parapet of
the Grenelle bridge, a desire to do so had taken possession of him. He
merely had to lose his equilibrium and he would be liberated, laid to
rest in the peaceful earth between his wife and his daughter. And, all
at once, as if the abyss itself suggested to him the frightful solution
for which he had been vainly groping, in his growing madness, for two
days past, he thought that he could hear a voice calling him from below,
the voice of Blaise, which cried: "Come with the other one! Come with
the other one!"

He started violently and drew himself erect; decision had fallen on him
in a lightning flash. Insane as he was, that appeared to him to be the
one sole logical, mathematical, sensible solution, which would settle
everything. It seemed to him so simple, too, that he was astonished that
he had sought it so long. And from that moment this poor soft-hearted
weakling, whose wretched brain was unhinged, gave proof of iron will and
sovereign heroism, assisted by the clearest reasoning, the most subtle
craft.

In the first place he prepared everything, set the catch to prevent the
trap from being sent up again in his absence, and also assured himself
that the balustrade door opened and closed easily. He came and went with
a light, aerial step, as if carried off his feet, with his eyes ever on
the alert, anxious as he was to be neither seen nor heard. At last
he extinguished the three electric lamps and plunged the gallery into
darkness. From below, through the gaping cavity the stir of the working
factory, the rumbling of the machinery ever ascended. And it was only
then, e