Before long he knew. Late one sleepless night, as he sat in his chair, he thought he saw the curtains at his window move. He waited, uneasy, with a beating heart; the hangings stirred no more; then, all at once, they shook again; at least he thought they shook. He dared not rise from his chair; he did not dare even to breathe; and yet he was a brave man; he had fought many times and he would have rejoiced at finding thieves in the house.
Had the curtains really moved? He asked himself the question, afraid that his eyes were playing him tricks. Besides, it was the very least movement, a faint quiver of the drapery, a sort of trembling of the folds rather than such a lifting movement as the wind makes. Renardet sat there with staring eyes and outthrust neck; and abruptly, ashamed of his fear, he stood up, took four steps, seized the hangings in both hands and drew them wide apart. At first he saw nothing but the black panes, as black as squares of gleaming ink. Night, the vast impassable space of night, stretched beyond them to the unseen horizon. He stood thus looking out on to illimitable darkness; and suddenly he noticed a gleam, a gleam that moved and seemed a long way off. Then he pressed his face against the glass, thinking that a crab-fisher must be poaching in the Brindille, for it was past midnight, and this gleam was moving along the edge of the water under the trees of the copse. Renardet was still unable to make it out and he shaded his eyes with his hands; in a flash the gleam became a bright light, and he saw little Roque naked and bleeding on the moss.
He shrank back, convulsed with horror, hurling his chair aside and falling on his back. He lay there for some minutes, his brain reeling, then he sat up and began to reflect. He had had an hallucination, that was all, an hallucination caused by nothing more alarming than a night robber prowling along the edge of the stream with his lantern. What could be less surprising, indeed, than that the memory of his crime should sometimes call up in his mind the image of the dead girl?
He got up, drank a glass of water, and seated himself in his chair. He thought: “What shall I do, if it begins again?” And it would begin again: he felt it, he was sure of it. Even now the window was tempting him to lift his eyes, calling to them, drawing them. He turned his chair round so that he should not see it; then he took up a book and tried to read; but soon he thought he heard something moving behind him, and he swung his chair round violently on one leg. The curtain was moving again; there was no doubt this time that it had moved; he could doubt it no longer; he rushed at it and grasped it so violently that he tore it down, rod and all, then he pressed his face desperately against the pane. There was nothing to see. All outside was dark; and he drew his breath again as gladly as a man rescued from imminent death.
Then he went back and sat down again; but almost at once he was seized with a desire to look out of the window again. Now that the curtain was down, it looked like a shadowy hole opening on to the darkened countryside; it fascinated and terrified him. To keep himself from yielding to this fatal temptation, he undressed, blew out his light, lay down in bed, and closed his eyes.
Hot and wet with sweat, he lay there stiff on his back and waited for sleep. Suddenly a bright light fell on his eyelids. He opened them, thinking the house was on fire. All was dark, and he lifted himself on one elbow, and tried to make out the window that still beckoned him relentlessly. Straining his eyes to see it, he saw at last a few stars; and he got out of bed, groped across the room, found the windowpanes with his outstretched hands, and rested his forehead against them. There below, under the trees, the body of the young girl shone with a phosphorescent glow, lighting up the shadows round it.
With a great cry, Renardet rushed back to his bed, where he remained until morning, his head hidden under the pillow.
From that night, his life was intolerable. His days were filled with dread of his nights; and every night the vision came again. As soon as he had shut himself in his room, he tried to struggle against it; but in vain. An irresistible force dragged him to his feet and thrust him to the window as if to summon the phantom, and he saw it at once, lying at first in the place where he had commited the crime, lying with arms outstretched and legs apart, just as the body had lain when it was found. Then the dead child rose and drew near with little delicate steps, just as the child had done when she came out of the river. She drew near, very lightly, her straight small limbs moving over the grass and the carpet of drooping flowers; then she rose in the air towards Renardet’s window. She came towards him, as she had come on the day of the crime, towards her murderer. The man drew back before the apparition, he drew back as far as his bed and there collapsed, well knowing that the little girl had come in and now was standing behind the curtain that would move in a moment. He watched the curtain until daybreak, with staring eyes, waiting all the time to see his victim emerge. But she did not show herself any more; she stayed there, behind the hangings, and now and then a faint trembling shook
