As they were passing through the dining room he expressed his surprise.

“What, have you not been abed to-night?”

She shook her head, then said below her breath: 

“I cannot sleep; I have been sitting in an easy-chair beside the colonel.  He is very feverish; he awakes at every instant, almost, and then plies me with questions.  I don’t know how to answer them.  Come in and see him, you.”

M. de Vineuil had fallen asleep again.  His long face, now brightly red, barred by the sweeping mustache that fell across it like a snowy avalanche, was scarce distinguishable on the pillow.  Mme. Delaherche had placed a newspaper before the lamp and that corner of the room was lost in semi-darkness, while all the intensity of the bright lamplight was concentrated on her where she sat, uncompromisingly erect, in her fauteuil, her hands crossed before her in her lap, her vague eyes bent on space, in sorrowful reverie.

“I think he must have heard you,” she murmured; “he is awaking again.”

It was so; the colonel, without moving his head, had reopened his eyes and bent them on Delaherche.  He recognized him, and immediately asked in a voice that his exhausted condition made tremulous: 

“It is all over, is it not?  We have capitulated.”

The manufacturer, who encountered the look his mother cast on him at that moment, was on the point of equivocating.  But what good would it do?  A look of discouragement passed across his face.

“What else remained to do?  A single glance at the streets of the city would convince you.  General de Wimpffen has just set out for Prussian general headquarters to discuss conditions.”

M. de Vineuil’s eyes closed again, his long frame was shaken with a protracted shiver of supremely bitter grief, and this deep, long-drawn moan escaped his lips: 

“Ah! merciful God, merciful God!” And without opening his eyes he went on in faltering, broken accents:  “Ah! the plan I spoke of yesterday —­they should have adopted it.  Yes, I knew the country; I spoke of my apprehensions to the general, but even him they would not listen to.  Occupy all the heights up there to the north, from Saint-Menges to Fleigneux, with your army looking down on and commanding Sedan, able at any time to move on Vrigne-aux-Bois, mistress of Saint-Albert’s pass—­and there we are; our positions are impregnable, the Mezieres road is under our control—­”

His speech became more confused as he proceeded; he stammered a few more unintelligible words, while the vision of the battle that had been born of his fever little by little grew blurred and dim and at last was effaced by slumber.  He slept, and in his sleep perhaps the honest officer’s dreams were dreams of victory.

“Does the major speak favorably of his case?” Delaherche inquired in a whisper.

Madame Delaherche nodded affirmatively.

“Those wounds in the foot are dreadful things, though,” he went on.  “I suppose he is likely to be laid up for a long time, isn’t he?”