“Left alone, I experienced for several seconds the horrible agitation of one who awakens from a nightmare.  At length I regained my senses.  I ran to the window and with a mighty effort burst open the shutters, letting a flood of light into the room.  Immediately I sprang to the door by which that 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.”