her cheeks as, in her fancy, she again beheld the tragic city--that
line of quays stretching away in a furnace-like blaze, the deep moat
of the river, with its leaden waters obstructed by huge black masses,
lighters looking like lifeless whales, and bristling with motionless
cranes which stretched forth gallows-like arms. Was that a welcome to
Paris?

Again did silence fall. Claude had resumed his drawing. But she became
restless, her arm was getting stiff.

'Just put your elbow a little lower, please,' said Claude. Then, with
an air of concern, as if to excuse his curtness: 'Your parents will be
very uneasy, if they have heard of the accident.'

'I have no parents.'

'What! neither father nor mother? You are all alone in the world?'

'Yes; all alone.'

She was eighteen years old, and had been born in Strasburg, quite by
chance, though, between two changes of garrison, for her father was a
soldier, Captain Hallegrain. Just as she entered upon her twelfth
year, the captain, a Gascon, hailing from Montauban, had died at
Clermont, where he had settled when paralysis of the legs had obliged
him to retire from active service. For nearly five years afterwards,
her mother, a Parisian by birth, had remained in that dull provincial
town, managing as well as she could with her scanty pension, but eking
it out by fan-painting, in order that she might bring up her daughter
as a lady. She had, however, now been dead for fifteen months, and had