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“All the same, though,” he continued, “I am sorry for the Emperor. Affairs seemed to be going on well; the farmers were getting a good price for their grain. But surely it was bad judgment on his part to allow himself to become involved in this business!”

Maurice, who was still in “the blues,” spoke regretfully: “Ah, the Emperor! I always liked him in my heart, in spite of my republican ideas. Yes, I had it in the blood, on account of my grandfather, I suppose. And now that that limb is rotten and we shall have to lop it off, what is going to become of us?”

His eyes began to wander, and his voice and manner evinced such distress that Jean became alarmed and was about to rise and go to him, when Henriette came into the room. She had just awakened on hearing the sound of voices in the room adjoining hers. The pale light of a cloudy morning now illuminated the apartment.

“You come just in time to give him a scolding,” he said, with an affectation of liveliness. “He is not a good boy this morning.”

But the sight of his sister’s pale, sad face and the recollection of her affliction had had a salutary effect on Maurice by determining a sudden crisis of tenderness. He opened his arms and took her to his bosom, and when she rested her head upon his shoulder, when he held her locked in a close embrace, a feeling of great gentleness pervaded him and they mingled their tears.

“Ah, my poor, poor darling, why have I not more strength and courage to console you! for my sorrows are as nothing compared with yours. That good, faithful Weiss, the husband who loved you so fondly! What will become of you? You have always been the victim; always, and never a murmur from your lips. Think of the sorrow I have already caused you, and who can say that I shall not cause you still more in the future!”

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: