one
of their beauty, and saw in the faded woman the blooming girl,
surrounded by all the magic of her nineteen years, whom he had left
twenty-seven years ago.

Her first excitement had calmed a little during the silent observation
which had occupied several minutes; her voice had regained its natural
tone, and only trembled a little as she asked:

"But now, for Heaven's sake, tell me how all this has happened? Our
concierge saw you when you fell in the street and were carried away."

"He saw correctly."

"Then you were not killed?"

"Merely wounded."

"Well, and----?"

"You know how I left you. I was excited, bareheaded, mad. When I came
out of the Passage Saumon into the Rue Montmartre, I found the street
deserted, but I heard the roll of drums in the distance, soldiers
seemed to be pressing forward from the boulevard. Several persons ran
past, trying to escape into the side streets. Before I could clearly
understand what was going on around me, a volley of musketry was fired,
I felt a violent blow and fell. A few paces from me another man fell,
who did not move again. A window in the Passage Saumon opened and
instantly closed.

"The soldiers came up, carrying lanterns and torches. They found the
other man first, and threw the light into his face. Several voices
rose and I saw bayonets thrust into his body. Then they came to me.
Bayonets were already flashing above me, I instinctively thrust out my
hands in defense, an officer cried: 'Halt!' approached me, and asked
who I was. I said as quickly as my mortal fright would permit, that I
was a Swiss, a pupil of the _Ecole Centrale_, lived in the Passage
Saumon, had accidentally entered the street and been wounded by a shot.
The officer looked at my hands, they were not blackened by powder. The
light of the lanterns was cast around--I lay in my own blood, but no
weapon was near. 'Where is your hat?' asked the officer. 'I wore none
when I left home.' 'That is suspicious,' he said, to my terror, but
after a moment's reflection, which to me seemed an eternity, gave
orders that I should be placed in a vegetable dealer's cart, which had
been abandoned by the owner, and taken to a hospital. Four soldiers
flung me roughly into the vehicle and dragged me to the Hotel Dieu."

He paused in his narrative.

Pauline looked at him and her eyes filled with tears.

"If I could tell you how I passed that night! You had scarcely gone
out, when the concierge r