d his chosen position safely.
The man looked so weak. It seemed to me that he might have died on the
road.

I thought I could almost perceive the gate, with Madame Dupin seated
under the battlements, her charming figure relieved against the gloom,
and that poor Lecamus lying, with his papers fluttering at her feet.
This was the last thing I was conscious of.

EXTRACT FROM THE NARRATIVE OF MADAME DUPIN DE LA CLAIRIERE (_nee_ DE
CHAMPFLEURIE).

I went with my husband to the city gate. I did not wish to distract his
mind from what he had undertaken, therefore I took care he should not
see me; but to follow close, giving the sympathy of your whole heart,
must not that be a support? If I am asked whether I was content to let
him go, I cannot answer yes; but had another than Martin been chosen, I
could not have borne it. What I desired, was to go myself. I was not
afraid: and if it had proved dangerous, if I had been broken and crushed
to pieces between the seen and the unseen, one could not have had a
more beautiful fate. It would have made me happy to go. But perhaps it
was better that the messenger should not be a woman; they might have
said it was delusion, an attack of the nerves. We are not trusted in
these respects, though I find it hard to tell why.

But I went with Martin to the gate. To go as far as was possible, to be
as near as possible, that was something. If there had been room for me
to pass, I should have gone, and with such gladness! for God He knows
that to help to thrust my husband into danger, and not to share it, was
terrible to me. But no; the invisible line was still drawn, beyond which
I could not stir. The door opened before him, and closed upon me. But
though to see him disappear into the gloom was anguish, yet to know that
he was the man by whom the city should be saved was sweet. I sat down on
the spot where my steps were stayed. It was close to the wall, where
there is a ledge of stonework round the basement of the tower. There I
sat down to wait till he should come again.

If any one thinks, however, that we, who were under the shelter of the
roof of La Clairiere were less tried than our husbands, it is a mistake;
our chief grief was that we were parted from them, not knowing what
suffering, what exposure they might have to bear, and knowing that they
would not accept, as most of us were willing to accept, the
interpretation of the mystery; but there was a certain comfort in the
fact that