She felt the paralysis slowly descending her arm and again grasping her wrist.

She hurried on, and traced another word.
Old Michaud read out in a loud voice: "_Therese and Laurent have----_" And Olivier inquired: "What have your dear children ?" The murderers, seized with blind terror, were on the point of completing the sentence aloud.

They contemplated the avenging hand with fixed and troubled eyes, when, all at once this hand became convulsed, and flattened out on the table.

It slipped down and fell on the knee of the impotent woman like a lump of inanimate flesh and bone.

The paralysis had returned and arrested the punishment.