His eyes opened and he found himself, bathed in the cold sweat of more than mortal terror, lying face downwards on the floor of his own bedroom.
In a blind, dazed fashion he struggled to his feet and rushed to the window and let the cool night air blow over his face. Every limb was trembling; he could not think with any clearness.
In some dim, unconscious fashion he groped for his watch, found it, and looked at the time. A quarter-past one. Only an hour had passed—an hour—and he felt as if centuries had swept over his head in the vivid horrors of that awful dream.
“But it was only a dream,” he cried aloud, drawing in deep panting breaths of the pine-scented air. “Oh! thank God. Thank God, it was only a dream!”
And he sank on his knees and sobbed like a child in the star-lit solitude of the night.