He had gone but a short distance when he asked himself whether these dangers were such as he saw them, and whether he were face to face with a radically demonstrated impossibility.

Without doubt, the concierge might observe him when he passed her lodge, either on going up-stairs or coming down; and, also, she might not observe him.  This, in reality, depended much upon himself, and on his method of proceeding.

Every evening this lame old concierge lighted the gas in the two wings of the building, one on the street and one on the court.  She began by lighting that on the street, and, with the difficulty that she found in walking, it should take her some time to climb the five stories and to descend.  If one watched from the street when, at dusk, she left her lodge with a wax taper in her hand, and mounted the stairs behind her, at a little distance, in such a way as to be on the landing of the first story when she should reach the second, there would be time, the deed done, to regain the street before she returned to her lodge, after having lighted the gas on the two staircases.  It was important to proceed methodically, without hurry, but, also, without loitering.

Was this impossible?

Here, exactly, was the delicate point which he must examine with composure, without permitting himself to be influenced by any other consideration than that which sprang from the deed itself.

He was wrong, then, not to continue his route, and it was better, assuredly, to get out of Paris.  In the country, in the fields or woods, he could find the calm that was indispensable to his over-excited brain, in which ideas clashed like the waves of a disturbed sea.

He was at this moment in the middle of the Faubourg Saint Honore; he followed a street that would bring him to the Champs Elysees, a desert at this early hour.

It took him some time to examine all the hypotheses that might present themselves, and he reached the conclusion that what had appeared impossible to him was not so.  If he preserved his calmness, and did not lose perception of the passing time, he could very well escape the concierge, which was the main point.

To tell the truth, the danger of the concierge removed, all was not easy.  There was the possibility of meeting one of the lodgers on the stairs; there was a chance of not finding Caffie at home, or, at least, not alone; or the bell might ring at the decisive moment.  But, as everything depended upon chance, these circumstances could not be decided beforehand.  It was a risk.  If one of them happened, he would wait until the next day; it would be one more day of agitation to live through.

But one question that should be decided in advance, because, surely, it presented serious dangers, was how he should justify the coming into his hands of a sum of money which, providentially and in the nick of time, relieved him from the embarrassments against which he struggled.