years, began faintly to stir in his soul, sending feelers abroad into
his brain and heart, shaping queer thoughts and penetrating even into
certain of his minor actions. Something exceedingly vital to himself, to
his soul, hung in the balance.

And, always when he returned to the inn about the hour of sunset, he saw
the figures of the townsfolk stealing through the dusk from their shop
doors, moving sentry-wise to and fro at the corners of the streets, yet
always vanishing silently like shadows at his near approach. And as the
inn invariably closed its doors at ten o'clock he had never yet found
the opportunity he rather half-heartedly sought to see for himself what
account the town could give of itself at night.

"--_à cause du sommeil et à cause des chats_"--the words now rang in his
ears more and more often, though still as yet without any definite
meaning.

Moreover, something made him sleep like the dead.


III

It was, I think, on the fifth day--though in this detail his story
sometimes varied--that he made a definite discovery which increased his
alarm and brought him up to a rather sharp climax. Before that he had
already noticed that a change was going forward and certain subtle
transformations being brought about in his character which modified
several of his minor habits. And he had affected to ignore them. Here,
however, was something he could no longer ignore; and it startled him.