Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/140

118 Marceline, as was their custom, made a careful search in every room for a hidden burglar. Having, as usual, failed to find one, (Heaven alone knows what they would have done with him if they had!) they went to bed with their minds at ease. As the more timid of the two, Theophrastus slept next the wall. They were soon asleep, Theophrastus snoring gently.

Night. Not a carriage in the street. Silence.

The snoring of Theophrastus ceased. Was it that he had sunk into a deeper sleep? No: he sleeps no more. His throat is dry; he stares into the darkness with affrighted eyes; he grips with a cold hand, a hand which fear is freezing, the shoulder of Marceline and awakens her.

He says in a low voice, so low that she does not even hear him, "Do you hear?"

Marceline holds her breath; she clutches her husband's icy hand. They strain their ears; and they undoubtedly do hear something—in the flat.

In very truth it is nothing to laugh at. The man who can laugh at an inexplicable noise, at night, in a flat, has not yet been born! There are brave men, splendidly brave, who will stick at nothing, who will go anywhere at night, into the emptiest streets of the most disreputable