glance through her three rooms, it was with a sinking heart that she saw they were untenanted save for the chill fog and continuous roar of the cannonade.  The distant firing was still going on.  She went and stood for a moment at the window; although the encircling wall of vapor was not less dense than it had been before, she seemed to have a clearer apprehension, now that she had received oral information, of the details of the conflict raging at Bazeilles, the grinding sound of the mitrailleuses, the crashing volleys of the French batteries answering the German batteries in the distance.  The reports seemed to be drawing nearer to the city, the battle to be waxing fiercer and fiercer with every moment.

Why did not Weiss return?  He had pledged himself so faithfully not to outstay the first attack!  And Henriette began to be seriously alarmed, depicting to herself the various obstacles that might have detained him:  perhaps he had not been able to leave the village, perhaps the roads were blocked or rendered impassable by the projectiles.  It might even be that something had happened him, but she put the thought aside and would not dwell on it, preferring to view things on their brighter side and finding in hope her safest mainstay and reliance.  For an instant she harbored the design of starting out and trying to find her husband, but there were considerations that seemed to render that course inadvisable:  supposing him to have started on his return, what would become of her should she miss him on the way? and what would be his anxiety should he come in and find her absent?  Her guiding principle in all her thoughts and actions was her gentle, affectionate devotedness, and she saw nothing strange or out of the way in a visit to Bazeilles under such extraordinary circumstances, accustomed as she was, like an affectionate little woman, to perform her duty in silence and do the thing that she deemed best for their common interest.  Where her husband was, there was her place; that was all there was about it.

She gave a sudden start and left the window, saying: 

“Monsieur Delaherche, how could I forget—­”

It had just come to her recollection that the cloth manufacturer had also passed the night at Bazeilles, and if he had returned would be able to give her the intelligence she wanted.  She ran swiftly down the stairs again.  In place of taking the more roundabout way by the Rue des Voyards, she crossed the little courtyard of her house and entered the passage that conducted to the huge structure that fronted on the Rue Maqua.  As she came out into the great central garden, paved with flagstones now and retaining of its pristine glories only a few venerable trees, magnificent century-old elms, she was astonished to see a sentry mounting guard at the door of a carriage-house; then it occurred to her that she had been told the day before that the camp chests of the 7th corps had been deposited there for safe keeping, and it produced