Coconnas thought he was dreaming, and that in this dream he saw the
enemy he imagined he had twice slain, only the dream was unduly
prolonged. After having observed La Mole laid, like himself, on a couch,
and his wounds dressed by the surgeon, he saw him rise up in bed, while
he himself was still confined to his by his fever, his weakness, and his
pain; he saw him get out of bed, then walk, first leaning on the
surgeon's arm, and then on a cane, and finally without assistance.

Coconnas, still delirious, viewed these different stages of his
companion's recovery with eyes sometimes dull, at others wandering, but
always threatening.

All this presented to the Piedmontese's fiery spirit a fearful mixture
of the fantastic and the real. For him La Mole was dead, wholly dead,
having been actually killed twice and not merely once, and yet he
recognized this same La Mole's ghost lying in a bed like his own; then,
as we have said, he saw this ghost get up, walk round, and, horrible to
relate, come toward his bed. This ghost, whom Coconnas would have wished
to avoid, even had it been in the depths of hell, came straight to him
and stopped beside his pillow, standing there and looking at him; there
was in his features a look of gentleness and compassion which Coconnas
took for the expression of hellish derision.

There arose in his mind, possibly more wounded than his body, an
insatiable thirst of vengeance. He was wholly occupied with one idea,
that of procuring some weapon, and with that weapon piercing the body or
the ghost of La Mole which so cruelly persecuted him. His clothes,
stained with blood, had been placed on a chair by his bed, but
afterwards removed, it being thought imprudent to leave them in his
sight; but his poniard still remained on the chair, for it was imagined
it would be some time before he would want to use it.

Coconnas saw the poniard; three nights while La Mole was slumbering he
strove to reach it; three nights his strength failed him, and he
fainted. At length, on the fourth night, he clutched it convulsively,
and groaning with the pain of the effort, hid the weapon beneath his
pillow.

The next day he saw something he had never deemed possible. La Mole's
ghost, which every day seemed to gain strength, while he, occupied with
the terrible dream, kept losing his in the eternal weaving of the scheme
which was to rid him of it,--La Mole's ghost, growing more and more
energetic, walked thoughtfully