discomfort, as they suddenly rose and disappeared before him.

As soon as he was upstairs, and had rapidly opened his door and shut
himself in, his first care was to look under his bed, and make a minute
inspection of the room to see that nobody was concealed there. He closed
the window in the roof thinking someone might perhaps get in that
way, and feeling more calm after taking these measures, he undressed,
astonished at his cowardice. He ended by laughing and calling himself a
child. Never had he been afraid, and he could not understand this sudden
fit of terror.

He went to bed. When he was in the warmth beneath the bedclothes, he
again thought of Therese, whom fright had driven from his mind. Do what
he would, obstinately close his eyes, endeavour to sleep, he felt his
thoughts at work commanding his attention, connecting one with the
other, to ever point out to him the advantage he would reap by marrying
as soon as possible. Ever and anon he would turn round, saying to
himself:

"I must not think any more; I shall have to get up at eight o'clock
to-morrow morning to go to my office."

And he made an effort to slip off to sleep. But the ideas returned one
by one. The dull labour of his reasoning began again; and he soon found
himself in a sort of acute reverie that displayed to him in the depths
of his brain, the necessity for his marriage, along with the arguments
his desire and prudence advanced in turn, for and against the possession
of Therese.

Then, seeing he was unable to sleep, that insomnia kept his body in a