Renardet sat still, with staring eyes and outstretched neck.  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 night, stretched beyond 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 crabs might be poaching in the Brindille, 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, knocked over his chair and fell over on his back.  He remained there some minutes in anguish of mind; then he sat up and began to reflect.  He had had a hallucination—­that was all, a hallucination due to the fact that a night marauder 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 from the ground, swallowed a glass of wine and sat down again.  He was thinking: 

“What am I to do if this occurs again?”

And it would occur; he felt it; he was sure of it.  Already his glance was drawn toward the window; it called him; it attracted him.  In order to avoid looking at it, he turned his chair round.  Then he took a book and tried to read, but it seemed to him that he presently heard something stirring behind him, and he swung round his armchair on one foot.

The curtain was moving again; unquestionably, it moved this time.  He could no longer have any doubt about it.

He rushed forward and grasped it so violently that he pulled it down with its pole.  Then he eagerly glued his face to the glass.  He saw nothing.  All was black outside, and he breathed with the joy of a man whose life has just been saved.

Then he went back to his chair and sat down again, but almost immediately he felt a longing to look out once more through the window.  Since the curtain had fallen down, the window made a sort of gap, fascinating and terrible, on the dark landscape.  In order not to yield to this dangerous temptation, he undressed, blew out the light and closed his eyes.

Lying on his back motionless, his skin warm and moist, he awaited sleep.  Suddenly a great gleam of light flashed across his eyelids.  He opened them, believing that his dwelling was on fire.  All was black as before, and he leaned on his elbow to try to distinguish the window which had still for him an unconquerable attraction.  By dint of, straining his eyes he could perceive some stars, and he rose, groped his way across the room, discovered the panes with his outstretched hands, and placed his forehead close to them.  There below, under the trees, lay the body of the little girl gleaming like phosphorus, lighting up the surrounding darkness.