"
The detective then took M. Plantat by the arm, and holding him
firmly:
"You see, my dear friend," said he, "the game is ours. Come along--
and in Laurence's name, have courage!"
XXVII
All M. Lecoq's anticipations were realized. Laurence was not dead,
and her letter to her parents was an odious trick. It was really
she who lived in the house as Mme. Wilson. How had the lovely
young girl, so much beloved by the old justice, come to such a
dreadful extremity? The logic of life, alas, fatally enchains all
our determinations to each other. Often an indifferent action,
little wrongful in itself, is the beginning of an atrocious crime.
Each of our new resolutions depends upon those which have preceded
it, and is their logical sequence just as the sum-total is the
product of the added figures. Woe to him who, being seized with a
dizziness at the brink of the abyss, does not fly as fast as
possible, without turning his head; for soon, yielding to an
irresistible attraction, he approaches, braves the danger, slips,
and is lost. Whatever thereafter he does or attempts he will roll
down the faster, until he reaches the very bottom of the gulf.
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