He lay for several minutes collecting his thoughts and, suddenly, remembering, made an instinctive defensive movement, as though he were being attacked:
"Fool that I am!" he cried, jumping out of bed. "It was a nightmare, an hallucination. It only needs a little reflection. Had it been 'he,' had it really been a man, in flesh and blood, who lifted his hand against me last night, he would have cut my throat like a rabbit's. 'He' doesn't hesitate. Let's be logical. Why should he spare me? For the sake of my good looks? No, I have been dreaming, that's all. . . ."
He began to whistle and dressed himself, assuming the greatest calmness, but his brain never ceased working and his eyes sought about. . . .
On the floor, on the window-ledge, not a trace. As his room was on the ground-floor and as he slept with his window open, it was evident that his assailant would have entered that way.
Well, he discovered nothing; and nothing either at the foot of the wall outside, or on the gravel of the path that ran round the chalet.
"Still . . . still . . ." he repeated, between his teeth. . . .
He called Octave:
"Where did you make the coffee which you gave me last night?"
"At the castle, governor, like the rest of the things. There is no range here."
"Did you drink any of it?"