What was it--madness, a nightmare, or a trap into which he had been decoyed with fiendish artfulness?
Why--what for?
He did not know.

Without any sense of guilt in his breast, in the full peace of his conscience as far as these people were concerned, the idea that he would be murdered for mysterious reasons by the couple Verloc passed not so much across his mind as across the pit of his stomach, and went out, leaving behind a trail of sickly faintness--an indisposition.
Comrade Ossipon did not feel very well in a very special way for a moment--a long moment.

And he stared.

Mr Verloc lay very still meanwhile, simulating sleep for reasons of his own, while that savage woman of his was guarding the door--invisible and silent in the dark and deserted street.

Was all this a some sort of terrifying arrangement invented by the police for his especial benefit?
His modesty shrank from that explanation.
But the true sense of the scene he was beholding came to Ossipon through the contemplation of the hat.