"Victor, why do I not kill this woman?"
Only a shrug in reply. The lady went on:
"You have immortalized my poor face, Monsieur; my husband insults you in return."
The Vicomte folded his arms across his chest.
"It is certain, Victor, that she still lives!"
"One night, Monsieur, my husband locked me in my room. He designed to make of me a prisoner. Why? Ah, do not ask me why? When he had left me, I escaped, not by the door which he had locked, but by a door he had not noticed. This door led into an apartment in which there was a stranger sleeping. I was but an instant in that apartment--but the instant in which it was necessary to pass through. The sleeper never spoke to me; he never saw me with his waking eyes. But, even in his sleep, my poor, frightened face so flashed upon his brain that, even in his waking hours, it haunted him so that he made of it a picture--a picture of that Vision of the Night!"
The Vicomte approached closer to his friend. He addressed him in a sort of confidential, but still distinctly audible, aside:
"Victor, is it possible that this is true?"
"I beg, my friend, that of me you will ask nothing."
"Monsieur, this morning I was at your Academy. I saw my own countenance looking at me from the walls. For the first time I learned that my poor, frightened woman's face had appeared to a sleeping stranger in a Vision of the Night. Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!"