Henriette shook him by the arm.

“My husband?”

“Weiss? why, he stayed behind there, Weiss did.”

“What do you mean, behind there?”

“Why, yes; he picked up the musket of a dead soldier, and is fighting away with the best of them.”

“He is fighting, you say?—­and why?”

“He must be out of his head, I think.  He would not come with me, and of course I had to leave him.”

Henriette gazed at him fixedly, with wide-dilated eyes.  For a moment no one spoke; then in a calm voice she declared her resolution.

“It is well; I will go to him.”

What, she, go to him?  But it was impossible, it was preposterous!  Delaherche had more to say of his hurricane of shot and shell.  Gilberte seized her by the wrists to detain her, while Madame Delaherche used all her persuasive powers to convince her of the folly of the mad undertaking.  In the same gentle, determined tone she repeated: 

“It is useless; I will go to him.”

She would only wait to adjust upon her head the lace scarf that Gilberte had been wearing and which the latter insisted she should accept.  In the hope that his offer might cause her to abandon her resolve Delaherche declared that he would go with her at least as far as the Balan gate, but just then he caught sight of the sentry, who, in all the turmoil and confusion of the time, had been pacing uninterruptedly up and down before the building that contained the treasure chests of the 7th corps, and suddenly he remembered, was alarmed, went to give a look and assure himself that the millions were there still.  In the meantime Henriette had reached the portico and was about to pass out into the street.

“Wait for me, won’t you?  Upon my word, you are as mad as your husband!”

Another ambulance had driven up, moreover, and they had to wait to let it pass in.  It was smaller than the other, having but two wheels, and the two men whom it contained, both severely wounded, rested on stretchers placed upon the floor.  The first one whom the attendants took out, using the most tender precaution, had one hand broken and his side torn by a splinter of shell; he was a mass of bleeding flesh.  The second had his left leg shattered; and Bouroche, giving orders to extend the latter on one of the oil-cloth-covered mattresses, proceeded forthwith to operate on him, surrounded by the staring, pushing crowd of dressers and assistants.  Madame Delaherche and Gilberte were seated near the grass-plot, employed in rolling bandages.

In the street outside Delaherche had caught up with Henriette.

“Come, my dear Madame Weiss, abandon this foolhardy undertaking.  How can you expect to find Weiss in all that confusion?  Most likely he is no longer there by this time; he is probably making his way home through the fields.  I assure you that Bazeilles is inaccessible.”