combinations were coming right. He was right as to the arrangement of
the letters; he was right as to the language. He had been within a
hair's breadth of reading this Latin document from end to end; but
that hair's breadth, chance had given it to me!

You may be sure I felt stirred up. My eyes were dim, I could scarcely
see. I had laid the paper upon the table. At a glance I could tell
the whole secret.

At last I became more calm. I made a wise resolve to walk twice round
the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I returned into the
deep gulf of the huge armchair.

"Now I'll read it," I cried, after having well distended my lungs
with air.

I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively upon every
letter; and without a pause, without one moment's hesitation, I read
off the whole sentence aloud.

Stupefaction! terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly
blow. What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A
mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate! . . .

"Ah!" I cried, springing up. "But no! no! My uncle shall never know
it. He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all
about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he
is! He would start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody,
and he would take me with him, and we should never get back. No,
never! never!"