Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/133

 "Guillaume," said she, stretching out—I believe—her arms in her sleep.

After a pause:

"Guillaume, where are you?"

Of course I gave no answer. By the noise the bed made, I knew that she had turned on the other side. Soon she was again fast asleep, for although she did not suore, she was puffing rhythmically.

I was about to leave my hiding place, when I heard a slight noise; some one was actually turning the handle of the door. It opened without creaking.

Lying flat on my stomach, I could see the legs of a barefooted man, standing on the threshold.

How I did shiver and quake. I of course concluded that it must be a burglar, coming to murder us. I did not stop to think that the man was in his night gown. My first impulse was to scream; but fear, and the instinct of self-preservation, made me keep quiet.

If I only had had a sword, I might have cut off his two feet and toppled him down.