Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/160

138 It is unpleasant to have to propose such a problem. I defy the cleverest person to solve it.

Léon did then what probably most would have done in his place. He never moved.

He remained fascinated for a long time with his eyes fixed upon the blue slipper and the little red stream which touched it. A cold sweat moistened his temples, and his heart beat in his breast as though it would burst.

A host of thoughts and strange and horrible fancies took possession of him, and an inward voice cried out all the time, "In an hour all will be known, and it is your own fault!" Nevertheless, by dint of repeating to himself "Qu'allais-je faire dans cette galère?" he finished up by perceiving some few rays of hope. "If we leave this accursed hotel," he said to himself at last, "before the discovery of what has happened in the adjoining room, perhaps they may lose trace of us. No one knows us here. I have only been seen in blue spectacles, and she has only been seen in a veil. We are only two steps from the station, and should be far away from it in an hour."

Then, as he had studied the time-table at great length to make out his journey, he recollected that a train for Paris stopped at eight o'clock. Very soon afterwards they would be