g him to her bosom,
her heart still bleeding with the recollection of the cruel sights she
had witnessed that day!

"My poor child, be good; come with me back to bed. Say good-night, my
poor child."

She vanished, bearing him away. When she returned from the adjoining
room she was no longer weeping; her face wore its customary expression
of calm and courageous resignation.

It was Honore who, with a trembling voice, started the conversation
again.

"And what did the Prussians do then?"

"Ah, yes; the Prussians. Well, they plundered right and left, destroying
everything, eating and drinking all they could lay hands on. They stole
linen as well, napkins and sheets, and even curtains, tearing them in
strips to make bandages for their feet. I saw some whose feet were one
raw lump of flesh, so long and hard had been their march. One little
group I saw, seated at the edge of the gutter before the doctor's
house, who had taken off their shoes and were bandaging themselves with
handsome chemises, trimmed with lace, stolen, doubtless, from pretty
Madame Lefevre, the manufacturer's wife. The pillage went on until
night. The houses had no doors or windows left, and one passing in
the street could look within and see the wrecked furniture, a scene of
destruction that would have aroused the anger of a saint. For my part, I
was almost wild, and could remain there no longer. They tried in vain to
keep me, telling me that the roads were blocked, that I would certainly
be killed; I started, and as soon as I was out of Raucourt, struck off
to the right and took to the fields. Carts, loaded with wounded French
and Prussians, were coming in from Beaumont. Two passed quite close to
me in the darkness; I could hear the shrieks and groans, and I ran, oh!
how I ran, across fields, through woods, I could not begin to tell you
where, except that I made a wide circuit over toward Villers.

"Twice I thought I heard soldiers coming and hid, but the only person
I met was another woman, a fugitive like myself. She was from Beaumont,
she said, and she told me things too horrible to repeat. After that
we ran harder than ever. And at last I am here, so wretched, oh! so
wretched with what I have seen!"

Her tears flowed again in such abundance as to choke her utterance. The
horrors of the day kept rising to her memory and would not down; she
related the story that the woman of Beaumont had told her. That person
lived in the main street of the vi