"He hung down his head and answered--

"'She is to be buried this morning!'

"Now whence came this revelation? I had seen no one, spoken to no one; a
moment before I had no idea of it!"

Derues made a gesture of surprise. Monsieur de Lamotte put his hand to
his eyes, and said to the cure--

"Your presentiments were true; mine, happily, are unfounded. But listen,
and tell me if in the state of anxiety which oppressed me I had not good
reason for alarm and for fearing some fatal misfortune."

His eyes again sought Derues. "Towards the middle of last night I at
length fell asleep, but, interrupted every moment, this sleep was more a
fatigue than a rest; I seemed to hear confused noises all round me. I
saw brilliant lights which dazzled me, and then sank back into silence
and darkness. Sometimes I heard someone weeping near my bed; again
plaintive voices called to me out of the darkness. I stretched out my
arms, but nothing met them, I fought with phantoms; at length a cold hand
grasped mine and led me rapidly forward. Under a dark and damp vault a
woman lay on the ground, bleeding, inanimate--it was my wife! At the
same moment, a groan made me look round, and I beheld a man striking my
son with a dagger. I cried out and awoke, bathed in cold perspiration,
panting under this terrible vision. I was obliged to get up, walk about,
and speak aloud, in order to convince myself it was only a dream. I
tried to go to sleep again, but the same visions still pursued me. I saw
always the same man armed with two daggers streaming with blood; I heard
always the cries of his two victims. When day came, I felt utterly