What he was afraid of in the coming night was sleeplessness and the
endless strain of that wearisome task. It had to be faced however.
He lay on his back, sighing profoundly in the dark, and suddenly
beheld his very own self, carrying a small bizarre lamp, reflected
in a long mirror inside a room in an empty and unfurnished palace.
In this startling image of himself he recognised somebody he had to
follow--the frightened guide of his dream. He traversed endless
galleries, no end of lofty halls, innumerable doors. He lost
himself utterly--he found his way again. Room succeeded room. At
last the lamp went out, and he stumbled against some object which,
when he stooped for it, he found to be very cold and heavy to lift.
The sickly white light of dawn showed him the head of a statue.
Its marble hair was done in the bold lines of a helmet, on its lips
the chisel had left a faint smile, and it resembled Miss Moorsom.
While he was staring at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in
his fingers, to diminish and crumble to pieces, and at last turned
into a handful of dust, which was blown away by a puff of wind so
chilly that he woke up with a desperate shiver and leaped headlong
out of his bed-place. The day had really come. He sat down by the
cabin table, and taking his head between his hands, did not stir
for a very long time.

Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream. The lamp, of
course, he connected with the search for a man. But on closer
examination he perceived that the reflection of himself in the
mirror was not really the true Renouard, but somebody else whose
face he could not remember. In the deserted palace he recognised a
sinister adaptation by his brain of the long corridors with many
doors, in the great building in which his friend's newspaper was
lodged on the first floor. The marble head with Miss Moorsom's