se and menacing.

What was it?

He knew it ere long. As he sat in his armchair, rather late one evening
when he could not sleep, he thought he saw the curtain of his window
move. He waited, in an uneasy state of mind, with beating heart. The
drapery did not stir; then, all of a sudden it moved once more. He did
not venture to rise up; he no longer ventured to breathe, and yet he was
brave. He had often fought, and he would have liked to catch thieves in
his house.

Was it true that this curtain did move? he asked himself, fearing that
his eyes had deceived him. It was, moreover, such a slight thing, a
gentle flutter of lace, a kind of trembling in its folds, less than an
undulation such as is caused by the wind.

Renardet sat still, with staring eyes, and outstretched neck; and he
sprang to his feet abruptly ashamed of his fear, took four steps, seized
the drapery with both hands, and pulled it wide apart. At first, he saw
nothing but darkened glass, resembling plates of glittering ink. The
night, the vast, impenetrable sketched behind as far as the invisible
horizon. He remained standing in front of this illimitable shadow, and
suddenly he perceived a light, a moving light, which seemed some
distance away.

Then he put his face close to the window-pane, thinking that a person
looking for crayfish might be poaching in the Brindelle, for it was past
midnight, and this light rose up at the edge of the stream, under the
trees. As he was not yet able to see clearly, Renardet placed his hands
over his eyes; and suddenly this light became an illumination, and he
beheld little Louise Roque naked and bleeding on the moss. He recoiled
frozen with horror, sank into his chair, and fell backward. He remained
there some minutes, his soul in distress, then he sat up and began to
reflect. He had had a hallucination--that was all; a hallucination due
to the fact that a marauder of the night was walking with a lantern in
his hand near the water's edge. What was there astonishing, besides, in
the circumstance that the recollection of his crime should sometimes
bring before him the vision of the dead girl?

He rose up, swallowed a glass of wine and sat down again.

He thought.

"What am I to do if this come back?"

And it did come back; he felt it; he was sure of it. Already his glance
was drawn towards the window; it called him; it attracted him. In order
to avoid looking at it, he turned aside his chair. Then he took a book