Was it possible? No, no . . . and yet he saw. . . . Oh, the fearsome sight! . . . The man, the monster, was there. . . .
"He shall not . . . he shall not," stammered Lupin madly.
The man, the monster was there, dressed in black, with a mask on his face and with his felt hat pulled down over his fair hair.
"Oh, I am dreaming. . . . I am dreaming!" said Lupin, laughing. "It's a nightmare! . . ."
Exerting all his strength and all his will-power, he tried to make a movement, one movement, to drive away the vision.
He could not.
And, suddenly, he remembered: the coffee! The taste of it . . . similar to the taste of the coffee which he had drunk at Veldenz!
He gave a cry, made a last effort and fell back exhausted. But, in his delirium, he felt that the man was unfastening the top button of his pajama-jacket and baring his neck, felt that the man was raising his arm, saw that the hand was clutching the handle of a dagger, a little steel dagger similar to that which had struck Kesselbach, Chapman, Altenheim and so many others. . . .
A few hours later, Lupin woke up, shattered with fatigue, with a scorched palate.