Diane moved amidst the familiar scene with a dazed and bewildered consciousness that made all her surroundings appear like the dim reality of a dream. This ethereal twilight, with its pale, ineffable clearness, seemed to be the hour of tender reveries, of delicate visions. She heard, without heeding, a hundred crackling sounds—echoes, movements, the rustling of leaves, the occasional twittering of some bird disturbed in its nest. A depression deep and dark, the inevitable reaction succeeding a long strain of agitation, took possession of her. The feverish energy which had until now sustained her gave out, and with the physical exhaustion came the mental. All the pain and trouble of the last few days became focused into a haunting fear. It was one of those times when it seems possible for a human being to stand outside of material things; when the veil which hides the everlasting verities is raised before eyes all pained and strained with gazing. The windows of Jeanne Le Ber’s room, overlooking the garden, stood wide open to the summer breeze. An overwhelming impulse moved Diane. No longer able to stifle the cry of her anguish, she sank on her knees, stretching out imploring, passionate hands. Was it the moonlight, or the play of her own fancy, or did a slight, wasted form appear at the window, dreamily indistinct in the prevailing obscurity? Had the urgency of human need torn the saint from her prayers and her vigils? The girl’s voice, clear and penetrating, echoed through the stillness. “Have you, far away there, no feeling for our trouble? Even in the bliss of heaven itself it seems as though one’s heart must be touched by love and grief and pain. You have sacrificed yourself for the country—cannot you help your own in their extremity? Du Chesne—he is your brother, if you can recall the ties of kindred where you are—du Chesne may be grievously wounded; he may even now be lying still in death. Have you ceased to hear, to feel? Does no woman’s heart beat in your breast?” Did a white face, with deep-sunken, haggard eyes look down upon her from the window—a face more like that of a dead woman than a living one? It seemed to the excited girl, driven to extremities by her own fancy as much as by stress of circumstances, that her cry fell upon a passionless, unseen world which returned no answer. There was a blighting silence, like a conscious death. A heavy, dull despair settled upon her.