“And my sister?” Maurice inquired.

“Ah, yes! your sister; true.  She insisted on coming with me; it was she who brought the two loaves of bread.  She had to remain over yonder, though, on the other side of the canal; the sentries wouldn’t let her pass the gate.  You know the Prussians have strictly prohibited the presence of women in the peninsula.”

Then he spoke of Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see her brother and come to his assistance.  Once in Sedan chance had brought her face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in the Prussian Guards.  He had passed her with his haughty, supercilious air, pretending not to recognize her.  She, also, with a sensation of loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband’s murderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a sudden change of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back and told him all the manner of Weiss’s death, in harsh accents of reproach.  And he, thus learning how horribly a relative had met his fate, had taken the matter coolly; it was the fortune of war; the same thing might have happened to himself.  His face, rendered stoically impassive by the discipline of the soldier, had barely betrayed the faintest evidence of interest.  After that, when she informed him that her brother was a prisoner and besought him to use his influence to obtain for her an opportunity of seeing him, he had excused himself on the ground that he was powerless in the matter; the instructions were explicit and might not be disobeyed.  He appeared to place the regimental orderly book on a par with the Bible.  She left him with the clearly defined impression that he believed he was in the country for the sole purpose of sitting in judgment on the French people, with all the intolerance and arrogance of the hereditary enemy, swollen by his personal hatred for the nation whom it had devolved on him to chastise.

“And now,” said Delaherche in conclusion, “you won’t have to go to bed supperless to-night; you have had a little something to eat.  The worst is that I am afraid I shall not be able to secure another pass.”

He asked them if there was anything he could do for them outside, and obligingly consented to take charge of some pencil-written letters confided to him by other soldiers, for the Bavarians had more than once been seen to laugh as they lighted their pipes with missives which they had promised to forward.  Then, when Jean and Maurice had accompanied him to the gate, he exclaimed: 

“Look! over yonder, there’s Henriette!  Don’t you see her waving her handkerchief?”

True enough, among the crowd beyond the line of sentinels they distinguished a little, thin, pale face, a white dot that trembled in the sunshine.  Both were deeply affected, and, with moist eyes, raising their hands above their head, answered her salutation by waving them frantically in the air.

The following day was Friday, and it was then that Maurice felt that his cup of horror was full to overflowing.  After another night of tranquil slumber in the little wood he was so fortunate as to secure another meal, Jean having come across an old woman at the Chateau of Villette who was selling bread at ten francs the pound.  But that day they witnessed a spectacle of which the horror remained imprinted on their minds for many weeks and months.