"There!" he said, as he entered the room. "We have stolen, we make
restitution. Look, Planus, you can raise money with all this stuff."
And he placed on the cashier's desk all the fashionable plunder with
which his arms were filled--feminine trinkets, trivial aids to coquetry,
stamped papers.

Then he turned to his wife:

"Take off your jewels! Come, be quick."

She complied slowly, opened reluctantly the clasps of bracelets and
buckles, and above all the superb fastening of her diamond necklace on
which the initial of her name-a gleaming S-resembled a sleeping serpent,
imprisoned in a circle of gold. Risler, thinking that she was too slow,
ruthlessly broke, the fragile fastenings. Luxury shrieked beneath his
fingers, as if it were being whipped.

"Now it is my turn," he said; "I too must give up everything. Here is my
portfolio. What else have I? What else have I?"

He searched his pockets feverishly.

"Ah! my watch. With the chain it will bring four-thousand francs. My
rings, my wedding-ring. Everything goes into the cash-box, everything.
We have a hundred thousand francs to pay this morning. As soon as it is
daylight we must go to work, sell out and pay our debts. I know some one
who wants the house at Asnieres. That can be settled at once."

He alone spoke and acted. Sigismond and Madame Georges watched him
without speaking. As for Sidonie, she seemed unconscious, lifeless.