The carriage stopped.  She opened the door.  Celia sprang out on to the pavement.  She sprang so quickly that Adele Rossignol caught and held the train of her dress.  But it was the fear of the vitriol which had made her spring so nimbly.  It was that, too, which made her run so lightly and quickly into the house.  The old woman who acted as servant, Jeanne Tace, received her.  Celia offered no resistance.  The fear of vitriol had made her supple as a glove.  Jeanne hurried her down the stairs into the little parlour at the back of the house, where supper was laid, and pushed her into a chair.  Celia let her arms fall forward on the table.  She had no hope now.  She was friendless and alone in a den of murderers, who meant first to torture, then to kill her.  She would be held up to execration as a murderess.  No one would know how she had died or what she had suffered.  She was in pain, and her throat burned.  She buried her face in her arms and sobbed.  All her body shook with her sobbing.  Jeanne Rossignol took no notice.  She treated Celie just as the others had done.  Celia was la petite, against whom she had no animosity, by whom she was not to be touched to any tenderness.  La petite had unconsciously played her useful part in their crime.  But her use was ended now, and they would deal with her accordingly.  She removed the girl’s hat and cloak and tossed them aside.

“Now stay quiet until we are ready for you,” she said.  And Celia, lifting her head, said in a whisper: 

“Water!”

The old woman poured some from a jug and held the glass to Celia’s lips.

“Thank you,” whispered Celia gratefully, and Adele came into the room.  She told the story of the night to Jeanne, and afterwards to Hippolyte when he joined them.

“And nothing gained!” cried the older woman furiously.  “And we have hardly a five-franc piece in the house.”

“Yes, something,” said Adele.  “A necklace—­a good one—­some good rings, and bracelets.  And we shall find out where the rest is hid--from her.”  And she nodded at Celia.

The three people ate their supper, and, while they ate it, discussed Celia’s fate.  She was lying with her head bowed upon her arms at the same table, within a foot of them.  But they made no more of her presence than if she had been an old shoe.  Only once did one of them speak to her.

“Stop your whimpering,” said Hippolyte roughly.  “We can hardly hear ourselves talk.”

He was for finishing with the business altogether to-night.

“It’s a mistake,” he said.  “There’s been a bungle, and the sooner we are rid of it the better.  There’s a boat at the bottom of the garden.”

Celia listened and shuddered.  He would have no more compunction over drowning her than he would have had over drowning a blind kitten.

“It’s cursed luck,” he said.  “But we have got the necklace—­that’s something.  That’s our share, do you see?  The young spark can look for the rest.”