e? But, great Heaven! how little they amount to! What unreliable
guides, and what feeble supports! Listen to a sad story: Yesterday,
thanks to Madame de Malouet, I remained alone at the chateau the
whole day and the whole evening. I was therefore as much at peace as
it was possible for me to be. Toward midnight I heard the carriages
returning, and soon after all noise ceased. It was, I think, about three
o'clock in the morning when I was aroused from the species of torpor that
has stood me in lieu of sleep for the past few nights, by the sound quite
close to me, of a door cautiously opened or closed in the yard. I know
not by what strange and sudden connection of ideas so simple an
incident attracted my attention and disturbed my mind. I left abruptly
the arm-chair in which I had been slumbering, and I went up to a
window. I distinctly saw a man moving off with discreet steps in the
direction of the avenue. I had no difficulty in satisfying myself that the
door through which he had just passed, was that which gives access to
the wing of the chateau contiguous to the library. This part of the house
contains several rooms devoted to transient guests; I knew that all were
vacant at this moment, unless Madame de Palme, as it often happened,
had occupied for the night the lodging that was always set apart for her
in that wing.

You may guess what strange thought floated across my brain. I repelled it
at first as sheer madness; but remembering, within the field of my
somewhat extended experience, certain facts that lent probability to that
thought, I entertained it with a sort of cynical irony, and I was almost
ready to admit it, as an odious but decisive denouement. The early dawn
found me struggling still in this mental anguish, calling up my
recollections, examining in a childish way the most minute circumstances
that might tend to confirm or to banish my suspicions. Excess of fatigue,
brought on at last two hours of prostration, from which I emerged with a
better command of my reason. It was impossible for me to doubt the reality
of the apparition that had struck my eyes during the night; but it
appeared to me that I had put upon it a hasty and senseless construction,
and that my ailing spirit had attributed to it the least likely
explanation.

I went down at half past ten o'clock as usual. Madame de Palme was in the
parlor; she must therefore have spent the night at the chateau.
Nevertheless, a mere glance at her was en