ow....' And then he left the room."

* * * * *

"The next day the terrified old servant wished to dress her, but the mad
woman began to scream violently, and resisted with all her might. The
officer ran upstairs quickly, and the servant threw herself at his feet
and cried: 'She will not come down, Monsieur, she will not. Forgive her,
for she is so unhappy.'

"The soldier was embarrassed, as in spite of his anger, he did not
venture to order his soldiers to drag her out, but suddenly he began to
laugh, and gave some orders in German, and soon a party of soldiers was
seen coming out supporting a mattress as if they were carrying a wounded
man. On that bed, which had not been unmade, the mad woman, who was
still silent, was lying quite quietly, for she was quite indifferent to
anything that went on, as long as they let her lie. Behind her, a
soldier was carrying a parcel of feminine attire, and the officer said,
rubbing his hands: 'We will just see whether you cannot dress yourself
alone, and take a little walk.'

"And then the procession went off in the direction of the forest of
Imauville; in two hours the soldiers came back alone, and nothing more
was seen of the mad woman. What had they done with her? Where had they
taken her to? No one knew.

"The snow was falling day and night, and enveloped the plain and the
woods in a shroud of frozen foam, and the wolves came and howled at our
very doors.

"The thought of that poor lost woman haunted me, and I made several
applications to the Prussian authorities in order to obtain some
information, and was nearly shot for doing so. When spring returned, the
army of occupation withdrew, but my neighbor's house remained closed;
the grass grew thick in the garden walks. The old servant had died
during the winter, and nobody troubled himself any longer about the
occurrence; I alone thought about it constantly. What had they done with
the woman? Had she escaped through the forest? Had somebody found her,
and taken her to a hospital, without being able to obtain any
information from her? Nothing happened to relieve my doubts; but, by
degrees, time assuaged my fears.

"Well, in the following autumn the woodcock were very plentiful, and as
my gout had left me for a time, I dragged myself as far as the forest. I
had already killed four or five of the long-billed birds, when I knocked
over one, which fell into a ditch full of branches, and I was o