“What is on the tea-table?”
“The cat!”
“Are you sure it was in its right place last night?” asked Marceline.
“Perfectly sure. I put my scarf-pin on it when I was going to bed.”
“Oh, you only think that you did it,” said Marceline. “Shall I light the lamp?”
“No, no. We can escape in the darkness. If I open the door on the landing we can call the conciergerie.”
“You are not afraid, then?” asked Marceline, who, now that she heard it was the cat, was recovering her senses. “It was an illusion that we had. You must have changed his place last night.”
“After all it is very possible,” said Théophraste. He only wanted to get back to bed.
“Put it in its place,” insisted Marceline. Théophraste decided to do so. He went into the office, and with a hasty, trembling hand took the cat from the tea-table and put it on the desk, and soon found himself back in bed. By this time they had recovered their composure.
They even smiled in the darkness to think that they had been afraid. However, a quarter of an hour elapsed, and they were frightened to hear again the rattle of the ornament. “Oh, it is not possible,” cried Marceline; “we are the victims of hallucination. There is nothing to astonish us after what has happened at the Conciergerie.”