ruins, and begged for mercy and for food, nor found time in the
general overwhelming to think of the gallant Montcalm, lying in his
shell-made grave at the chapel of the Ursulines, not fifty steps
from where I had looked through the tapestry on Alixe and Doltaire.
The convent was almost deserted now, and as I passed it, on my way
to the cathedral, I took off my hat; for how knew I but that she
I loved best lay there, too, as truly a heroine as the admirable
Montcalm was hero! A solitary bell was clanging on the chapel as
I went by, and I saw three nuns steal past me with bowed heads.
I longed to stop them and ask them of Alixe, for I felt sure that
the Church knew where she was, living or dead, though none of all
I asked knew aught of her, not even the Chevalier de la Darante,
who had come to our camp the night before, accompanied by Monsieur
Joannes, the town major, with terms of surrender.

I came to the church of the Recollets as I wandered; for now,
for a little time, I seemed bewildered and incapable, lost in a
maze of dreadful imaginings. I entered the door of the church,
and stumbled upon a body. Hearing footsteps ahead in the dusk,
I passed up the aisle, and came upon a pile of debris. Looking
up, I could see the stars shining through a hole in the roof,
Hearing a noise beyond, I went on, and there, seated on the high
altar, was the dwarf who had snatched the cup of rum out of
the fire the night that Mathilde had given the crosses to the
revellers. He gave a low, wild laugh, and hugged a bottle to his
breast. Almost at his feet, half naked, with her face on the lowest
step of the altar, her feet touching the altar itself, was the
girl--his sister--who had kept her drunken lover from assaulting
him. The girl was dead--there was a knife-wound in her breast. Sick
at the sight I left the place, and went on, almost mechanically,