The cripple was disarmed.  He hesitated for a moment, surprised that the enemy did not attack him more violently, and sought to profit by the delay.  His small, blinking eyes wandered around him, looking for something to throw.  But an idea seemed to strike him and to restore his confidence little by little; and, in a new and really unexpected fit of delight, he indulged in one of his loudest chuckles: 

“And what about Florence?” he shouted.  “Don’t forget Florence!  For I’ve got you there!  I can miss you with my revolver and you can steal my poison; but I have another means of hitting you, right in the heart.  You can’t live without Florence, can you?  Florence’s death means your own sentence, doesn’t it?  If Florence is dead, you’ll put the rope round your own neck, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you?”

“Yes.  If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!”

“She is dead!” cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment, hopping about on his knees.  “She’s dead, quite, quite dead!  What am I saying?  She’s more than dead!  A dead person retains the appearance of a live one for a time; but this is much better:  there’s no corpse here, Lupin; just a mess of flesh and bone!

“The whole scaffolding of rocks has come down on top of her!  You can picture it, eh?  What a sight!  Come, quick, it’s your turn to kick the bucket.  Would you like a length of rope?  Ha, ha, ha!  It’s enough to make one die with laughing.  Didn’t I say that you’d meet at the gates of hell?  Quick, your sweetheart’s waiting for you.  Do you hesitate?  Where’s your old French politeness?  You can’t keep a lady waiting, you know.  Hurry up, Lupin!  Florence is dead!”

He said this with real enjoyment, as though the mere word of death appeared to him delicious.

Don Luis had not moved a muscle.  He simply nodded his head and said: 

“What a pity!”

The cripple seemed petrified.  All his joyous contortions, all his triumphal pantomime, stopped short.  He blurted out: 

“Eh?  What did you say?”

“I say,” declared Don Luis, preserving his calm and courteous demeanour and refraining from echoing the cripple’s familiarity, “I say, my dear sir, that you have done very wrong.  I never met a finer nature nor one more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur.  The incomparable beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a better treatment.  It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a masterpiece of womankind had ceased to be.”

The cripple remained astounded.  Don Luis’s serene manner dismayed him.  He said, in a blank voice: 

“I tell you, she has ceased to be.  Haven’t you seen the grotto?  Florence no longer exists!”

“I refuse to believe it,” said Don Luis quietly.  “If that were so, everything would look different.  The sky would be clouded; the birds would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb.  But the birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be:  the honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet.  How could Florence be dead?”