When she saw that her niece and nephew allowed her to remain in the dining-room, she experienced lively joy at the thought of attempting to avenge her son.
Aware that her tongue was powerless, she resorted to a new kind of language.

With astonishing power of will, she succeeded, in a measure, in galvanising her right hand, in slightly raising it from her knee, where it always lay stretched out, inert; she then made it creep little by little up one of the legs of the table before her, and thus succeeded in placing it on the oilcloth table cover.

Then, she feebly agitated the fingers as if to attract attention.
When the players perceived this lifeless hand, white and nerveless, before them, they were exceedingly surprised.

Grivet stopped short, with his arm in the air, at the moment when he was about to play the double-six.

Since the impotent woman had been struck down, she had never moved her hands.
"Hey! Just look, Therese," cried Michaud.