She was silencing him, placing her hand upon his mouth, when Delaherche came into the room, beside himself with indignation.  While still on the terrace he had been seized by one of those uncontrollable nervous fits of hunger that are aggravated by fatigue, and had descended to the kitchen in quest of something warm to drink, where he had found, keeping company with his cook, a relative of hers, a carpenter of Bazeilles, whom she was in the act of treating to a bowl of hot wine.  This person, who had been one of the last to leave the place while the conflagrations were at their height, had told him that his dyehouse was utterly destroyed, nothing left of it but a heap of ruins.

“The robbers, the thieves!  Would you have believed it, hein?” he stammered, addressing Jean and Maurice.  “There is no hope left; they mean to burn Sedan this morning as they burned Bazeilles yesterday.  I’m ruined, I’m ruined!” The scar that Henriette bore on her forehead attracted his attention, and he remembered that he had not spoken to her yet.  “It is true, you went there, after all; you got that wound—­ Ah! poor Weiss!”

And seeing by the young woman’s tears that she was acquainted with her husband’s fate, he abruptly blurted out the horrible bit of news that the carpenter had communicated to him among the rest.

“Poor Weiss! it seems they burned him.  Yes, after shooting all the civilians who were caught with arms in their hands, they threw their bodies into the flames of a burning house and poured petroleum over them.”

Henriette was horror-stricken as she listened.  Her tears burst forth, her frame was shaken by her sobs.  My God, my God, not even the poor comfort of going to claim her dear dead and give him decent sepulture; his ashes were to be scattered by the winds of heaven!  Maurice had again clasped her in his arms and spoke to her endearingly, calling her his poor Cinderella, beseeching her not to take the matter so to heart, a brave woman as she was.

After a time, during which no word was spoken, Delaherche, who had been standing at the window watching the growing day, suddenly turned and addressed the two soldiers: 

“By the way, I was near forgetting.  What I came up here to tell you is this:  down in the courtyard, in the shed where the treasure chests were deposited, there is an officer who is about to distribute the money among the men, so as to keep the Prussians from getting it.  You had better go down, for a little money may be useful to you, that is, provided we are all alive a few hours hence.”

The advice was good, and Maurice and Jean acted on it, having first prevailed on Henriette to take her brother’s place on the sofa.  If she could not go to sleep again, she would at least be securing some repose.  As for Delaherche, he passed through the adjoining chamber, where Gilberte with her tranquil, pretty face was slumbering still as soundly as a child, neither the sound of conversation nor even Henriette’s sobs having availed to make her change her position.  From there he went to the apartment where his mother was watching at Colonel de Vineuil’s bedside, and thrust his head through the door; the old lady was asleep in her fauteuil, while the colonel, his eyes closed, was like a corpse.  He opened them to their full extent and asked: