Crushed beneath that terrible weight, the sleeper struggled in vain for a space that seemed to him more than a century, and he had the death-rattle in his throat when he succeeded in rousing himself. But, although the day was beginning to break, and he could see everything in the tower distinctly, he remained so completely under the influence of his dream that he fancied that he still saw that inflexible face before his eyes and felt the weight of a body as heavy as a mountain of brass on his crushed and sunken chest. He arose and walked around the room several times before returning to bed, for, although he was anxious to make an early start, he was overcome by an unconquerable feeling of prostration. But his eyes were no sooner closed than the spectre recurred to his determination to stifle him, until, feeling that he was at the point of death, the young man cried out in a broken voice: "Father! father! what have I done to you, and why have you determined to murder your own son?" The sound of his own voice woke him, and, finding that he was still pursued by the apparition, he ran to the window and opened it. As soon as the cool outer air entered that low room, in the atmosphere of which there was something lethargic, the hallucination vanished, and he dressed in haste, in order to leave the place where he had been the plaything of such a cruel fancy. But, notwithstanding all his efforts to think of something else, he could not shake off a feeling of painful disquietude, and the _guest-chamber_ of Châteaubrun seemed to him even more dismal than on the night before. The dull, gray light enabled him at last to see the whole of the château from his window.