escape from the grasp of the recollections that held me fast. Again I
seemed to see under my closed eyelids the faint line of the high road
which led from the Porte St. Lambert, the broken ground with its ragged
bushes on either side, and no one--no one there--not a soul, not a
shadow: yet a multitude! When I allowed myself to think of this, my
heart leaped into my throat again, my blood ran in my veins like a river
in flood. I need not say that I resisted this transport of the nerves
with all my might. As the night grew slowly into morning my power of
resistance increased; I turned my back, so to speak, upon my
recollections, and said to myself, with growing firmness, that all
sensations of the body must have their origin in the body. Some
derangement of the system easily explainable, no doubt, if one but held
the clue--must have produced the impression which otherwise it would be
impossible to explain. As I turned this over and over in my mind,
carefully avoiding all temptations to excitement--which is the only
wise course in the case of a strong impression on the nerves--I
gradually became able to believe that this was the cause. It is one of
the penalties, I said to myself, which one has to pay for an
organisation more finely tempered than that of the crowd.

This long struggle with myself made the night less tedious, though,
perhaps, more terrible; and when at length I was overpowered by sleep,
the short interval of unconsciousness restored me like a cordial. I woke
in the early morning, feeling almost able to smile at the terrors of the
night. When one can assure oneself that the day has really begun, even
while it is yet dark, there is a change of sensation, an increase of
strength and courage. One by one the dark hours went on. I heard them
pealing from the Cathedral clock--four, five, six, seven--all dark,
dark. I had got up and dressed before the last, but found no one else
awake when I went out--no one stirring in the house,--no one moving in