There was nothing "stuck-up" about Delaherche, people said; he was fond
of popularity and was always delighted to have a chat with those of an
inferior station.

"He wants Weiss's address! that's odd. Bring the soldier in here."

Jean entered the room in such an exhausted state that he reeled as if
he had been drunk. He started at seeing his captain seated at the
table with two ladies, and involuntarily withdrew the hand that he had
extended toward a chair in order to steady himself; he replied briefly
to the questions of the manufacturer, who played his part of the
soldier's friend with great cordiality. In a few words he explained his
relation toward Maurice and the reason why he was looking for him.

"He is a corporal in my company," the captain finally said by way of
cutting short the conversation, and inaugurated a series of questions on
his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean went
on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reach
his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte again
thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty is
supposed to atone for her indiscretion:

"Oh! he is my uncle; why does he not come and breakfast with us? We
could fix up a room for him here. Can't we send someone for him?"

But the old lady discouraged the project with an authority there was no
disputing. The good old bourgeois blood of the frontier towns flowed
in her veins; her austerely patriotic sentiments were almost those of a
man. She broke the stern silence that she had preserved during the meal
by saying:

"Never mind Monsieur de Vineuil; he is doing his duty."

Her short speech was productive of embarrassment among the party.
Delaherche conducted the captain to his study, where he saw him safely
bestowed upon the sofa; Gilberte moved lightly off about her business,
no more disconcerted by her rebuff than is the bird that shakes its
wings in gay defiance of the shower; while the handmaid to whom Jean had
been intrusted led him by a very labyrinth of passages and staircases
through the various departments of the factory.

The Weiss family lived in the Rue des Voyards, but their house, which
was Delaherche's property, communicated with the great structure in the
Rue Maqua. The Rue des Voyards was at that time one of the most squalid
streets in Sedan, being nothing more than a damp, narrow lane, its
normal darkness intensified by the proxim