r by which
that being had departed. I found it closed and immovable!

"Then the mad desire to flee overcame me like a panic the panic which
soldiers know in battle. I seized the three packets of letters on the
open desk, ran from the room, dashed down the stairs four steps at a
time, found myself outside, I know not how, and, perceiving my horse a
few steps off, leaped into the saddle and galloped away.

"I stopped only when I reached Rouen and alighted at my lodgings.
Throwing the reins to my orderly, I fled to my room and shut myself in to
reflect. For an hour I anxiously asked myself if I were not the victim of
a hallucination. Undoubtedly I had had one of those incomprehensible
nervous attacks those exaltations of mind that give rise to visions and
are the stronghold of the supernatural. And I was about to believe I had
seen a vision, had a hallucination, when, as I approached the window, my
eyes fell, by chance, upon my breast. My military cape was covered with
long black hairs! One by one, with trembling fingers, I plucked them off
and threw them away.

"I then called my orderly. I was too disturbed, too upset to go and see
my friend that day, and I also wished to reflect more fully upon what I
ought to tell him. I sent him his letters, for which he gave the soldier
a receipt. He asked after me most particularly, and, on being told I was
ill--had had a sunstroke--appeared exceedingly anxious. Next
morning I went to him, determined to tell him the truth. He had gone out
the evening before and had not yet returned. I called again during the
day; my friend was still absent. After waiting a week longer without news
of him, I notified the authorities and a judicial search was instituted.
Not the slightest trace of his whereabouts or manner of disappearance was
discovered.

"A minute inspection of the abandoned chateau revealed nothing of a
suspicious character. There was no indication that a woman had been
concealed there.

"After fruitless researches all further efforts were abandoned, and for
fifty-six years I have heard nothing; I know no more than before."

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 8.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES
Translated by
ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.
A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.
MME. QUESADA and Others

VOLUME VIII.

CLOCHETTE

How strange those old recollections are which haunt us, w