While he was staring at it fixedly, the head began to grow light in his fingers, to diminish and crumble to pieces, and at last turned into a handful of dust, which was blown away by a puff of wind so chilly that he woke up with a desperate shiver and leaped headlong out of his bed-place.

The day had really come.

He sat down by the cabin table, and taking his head between his hands, did not stir for a very long time.
Very quiet, he set himself to review this dream.

The lamp, of course, he connected with the search for a man.

But on closer examination he perceived that the reflection of himself in the mirror was not really the true Renouard, but somebody else whose face he could not remember.