hat 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."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
Volume 7, by Guy de Maupassant

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES ***

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