But the more urgently Louis pressed upon him the advantages to be derived from success, the oftener he sounded in his ears the magic words, “five hundred thousand francs,” the more loudly did Raoul’s conscience cry out against the sinful deed.

On Monday evening, about six o’clock, Raoul felt so depressed and miserable, that he had almost made up his mind to refuse to move another step, and to tell Louis that he must find another tool to carry out his abominable plot.

“Are you afraid?” asked Clameran, who had anxiously watched these inward struggles.

“Yes, I am afraid.  I am not cursed with your ferocious nature and iron will.  I am the most miserable dog living!”

“Come, cheer up, my boy!  You are not yourself to-day.  Don’t fail me at the last minute, when everything depends upon you.  Just think that we have almost finished; one more stroke of our oars, and we are in port.  You are only nervous:  come to dinner, and a bottle of Burgundy will soon set you right.”

They were walking along the boulevard.  Clameran insisted upon their entering a restaurant, and having dinner in a private room.

Vainly did he strive, however, to chase the gloom from Raoul’s pale face; he sat listening, with a sullen frown, to his friend’s jests about “swallowing the bitter pill gracefully.”

Urged by Louis, he drank two bottles of wine, in hopes that intoxication would inspire him with courage to do the deed, which Clameran impressed upon his mind must and should be done before many more hours had passed over his head.

But the drunkenness he sought came not; the wine proved false; at the bottom of the last bottle he found disgust and rage.

The clock struck eight.

“The time has come,” said Louis firmly.

Raoul turned livid; his teeth chattered, and his limbs trembled so that he was unable to stand on his feet.

“Oh, I cannot do it!” he cried in an agony of terror and rage.

Clameran’s eyes flashed with angry excitement at the prospect of all his plans being ruined at the last moment.  But he dared not give way to his anger, for fear of exasperating Raoul, whom he knew to be anxious for an excuse to quarrel; so he quietly pulled the bell-rope.  A boy appeared.

“A bottle of port,” he said, “and a bottle of rum.”

When the boy returned with the bottles, Louis filled a goblet with the two liquors mixed, and handed it to Raoul.

“Drink this,” he said in a tone of command.

Raoul emptied the glass at one draught, and a faint color returned to his ashy cheeks.  He arose, and snatching up his hat, cried fiercely: 

“Come along!”

But before he had walked half a square, the factitious energy inspired by drink deserted him.

He clung to Clameran’s arm, and was almost dragged along in the direction of the banker’s house, trembling like a criminal on his way to the scaffold.