Then he commenced to watch her incessantly, and she wished she could hide herself in order to avoid that cold eye riveted on her.

He kept staring at her, evening after evening, for hours together, only averting his eyes when she said, utterly unnerved: 

“Do not look at me like that, my child!”

Then he would lower his head.

But the moment her back was turned she once more felt that his eyes were upon her.  Wherever she went, he pursued her with his persistent gaze.

Sometimes, when she was walking in her little garden, she suddenly noticed him hidden behind a bush, as if he were lying in wait for her; and, again, when she sat in front of the house mending stockings while he was digging some vegetable bed, he kept continually watching her in a surreptitious manner, as he worked.

It was in vain that she asked him: 

“What’s the matter with you, my boy?  For the last three years, you have become very different.  I don’t recognize you.  Do tell me what ails you, and what you are thinking of.”

He invariably replied, in a quiet, weary tone: 

“Why, nothing ails me, aunt!”

And when she persisted: 

“Ah! my child, answer me, answer me when I speak to you.  If you knew what grief you caused me, you would always answer, and you would not look at me that way.  Have you any trouble?  Tell me!  I’ll comfort you!”

He went away, with a tired air, murmuring: 

“But there is nothing the matter with me, I assure you.”

He had not grown much, having always a childish look, although his features were those of a man.  They were, however, hard and badly cut.  He seemed incomplete, abortive, only half finished, and disquieting as a mystery.  He was a self-contained, unapproachable being, in whom there seemed always to be some active, dangerous mental labor going on.  Mademoiselle Source was quite conscious of all this, and she could not sleep at night, so great was her anxiety.  Frightful terrors, dreadful nightmares assailed her.  She shut herself up in her own room, and barricaded the door, tortured by fear.

What was she afraid of?  She could not tell.

She feared everything, the night, the walls, the shadows thrown by the moon on the white curtains of the windows, and, above all, she feared him.

Why?

What had she to fear?  Did she know what it was?

She could live this way no longer!  She felt certain that a misfortune threatened her, a frightful misfortune.

She set forth secretly one morning, and went into the city to see her relatives.  She told them about the matter in a gasping voice.  The two women thought she was going mad and tried to reassure her.

She said: 

“If you knew the way he looks at me from morning till night.  He never takes his eyes off me!  At times, I feel a longing to cry for help, to call in the neighbors, so much am I afraid.  But what could I say to them?  He does nothing but look at me.”