"When he woke," continued Prosper, "he must have been terrified and
lost his head; no doubt he fled."

"Without awaking you?" I said. "Then surely your defence is easy;
Wahlenfer's valise cannot have been stolen."

Suddenly he burst into tears.

"Oh, yes!" he cried, "I am innocent! I have not killed a man! I
remember my dreams. I was playing at base with my schoolmates. I
couldn't have cut off the head of a man while I dreamed I was
running."

Then, in spite of these gleams of hope, which gave him at times some
calmness, he felt a remorse which crushed him. He had, beyond all
question, raised his arm to kill that man. He judged himself; and he
felt that his heart was not innocent after committing that crime in
his mind.

"And yet, I _am_ good!" he cried. "Oh, my poor mother! Perhaps at this
moment she is cheerfully playing boston with the neighbors in her
little tapestry salon. If she knew that I had raised my hand to murder
a man--oh! she would die of it! And I _am_ in prison, accused of
committing that crime! If I have not killed a man, I have certainly
killed my mother!"

Saying these words he wept no longer; he was seized by that short and
rapid madness known to the men of Picardy; he sprang to the wall, and
if I had not caught him, he would have dashed out his brains against
it.