The frightful vision was always that certain notes bearing his signature were presented for collection which he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man always faithful to his bond, with a past of immaculate probity, was not able to pay.

Such a possibility made him tremble, and long after waking his heart would be oppressed with terror.

To his imagination this was the greatest disgrace that a man could suffer.
Now that war was overturning his existence with its agitations, the same agonies were reappearing.

Completely awake, with full powers of reasoning, he was suffering exactly the same distress as when in his horrible dreams he saw his dishonored signature on a protested document.
All his past was looming up before his eyes with such extraordinary clearness that it seemed as though until then his mind must have been in hopeless confusion.

The threatened land of France was his native country.