After a time I grew calmer, and I went back to the hotel and up to
my room. It seemed emptier, blanker still, now that even the dead
body of the dog had gone. In the grate, and scattered over the
carpet, remained still remnants of black tinder. I felt suddenly
tired, worn out. I flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed, and
lay there in a sort of stupor. And the slow, dark hours of that
terrible night of depression tramped over me with leaden footsteps.
CHAPTER V.
The next morning, just as I had dropped into an uneasy doze, there
came a knocking and a hammering, and a muttering outside my door.
"M'sieur! M'sieur!" Tap-tap-tap. "Que diable donc! Qu'il dort!
M'sieur! Profondement! Est ce qu'il est mort? Ah! c'est une bete
Anglaise!" Tap-tap-tap.
All this came through the wall in a hazy sort of confusion, mingling
with my sleep, before it roused me to go and open the door. Finally,
however, I stumbled off the bed and unlocked the door, and threw it
open.
"What now" I thought. "Have I broken any more of your confounded
Gallic regulations."
It was not a Commissary of Police this time, but a uniformed
commissionaire, with a note in his hand. Possibly serenely
unconscious that I had heard his polite remarks outside, he bowed
urbanely.
"Bonjour, M'sieur! A thousand apologies for disturbing M'sieur! But
Madame said I was to deliver this note personally.
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