rang down the steps.

A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward's part, that was
the part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, what
mattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Such
self-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay,
failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling!

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE THRESHOLD.

He hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, in
a still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with a
vengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled as
weakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he was
fleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him;
their laughter followed him, and burned his ears.

The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the Rhone
Valley below, could not wipe out _that_--the defeat and the shame. The
darkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thus
had Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing of
mingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So they
now regarded him.

And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, who
had left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought of
her, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and made
as if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, to
what end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurried
on afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the ramparts
near the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceived
himself? What if he had given back before them, not because she had
willed it, not because she had looked at him, not in compliance with
her wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of some
streak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, the
more he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed that
the look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped!

The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late to
undo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town was
growing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustle
of the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as they
walked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only their
harsh