III.

Sleep did not visit Henriette's eyes that night. She knew her husband
to be a prudent man, but the thought that he was in Bazeilles, so near
the German lines, was cause to her of deep anxiety. She tried to
soothe her apprehensions by reminding herself that she had his solemn
promise to return at the first appearance of danger; it availed not,
and at every instant she detected herself listening to catch the sound
of his footstep on the stair. At ten o'clock, as she was about to go
to bed, she opened her window, and resting her elbows on the sill,
gazed out into the night.

The darkness was intense; looking downward, she could scarce discern
the pavement of the Rue des Voyards, a narrow, obscure passage,
overhung by old frowning mansions. Further on, in the direction of the
college, a smoky street lamp burned dimly. A nitrous exhalation rose
from the street; the squall of a vagrant cat; the heavy step of a
belated soldier. From the city at her back came strange and alarming
sounds: the patter of hurrying feet, an ominous, incessant rumbling, a
muffled murmur without a name that chilled her blood. Her heart beat
loudly in her bosom as she bent her ear to listen, and still she heard
not the familiar echo of her husband's step at the turning of the
street below.

Hours passed, and now distant lights that began to twinkle in the open
fields beyond the ramparts excited afresh her apprehensions. It was so
dark that it cost her an effort of memory to recall localities. She
knew that the broad expanse that lay beneath her, reflecting a dim