The idea of letting Valentin, on his death-bed, confide him an "immense secret" shocked him, for the moment, and made him draw back.

It seemed an illicit way of arriving at information, and even had a vague analogy with listening at a key-hole.
Then, suddenly, the thought of "forcing" Madame de Bellegarde and her son became attractive, and Newman bent his head closer to Valentin's lips.

For some time, however, the dying man said nothing more.

He only lay and looked at his friend with his kindled, expanded, troubled eye, and Newman began to believe that he had spoken in delirium.

But at last he said,-- "There was something done--something done at Fleurieres.