In front of one of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and countrywomen. Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its denouement before the Commissioner of Police. Ah! if Frantz had known what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently from a distance. When he reached Asnieres, after a walk of two or three hours, it was like an awakening. The sun, rising in all its glory, set field and river on fire. The bridge, the houses, the quay, all stood forth with that matutinal sharpness of outline which gives the impression of a new day emerging, luminous and smiling, from the dense mists of the night. From a distance he descried his brother's house, already awake, the open blinds and the flowers on the window-sills. He wandered about some time before he could summon courage to enter. Suddenly some one hailed him from the shore: "Ah! Monsieur Frantz. How early you are today!" It was Sidonie's coachman taking his horses to bathe in the river. "Has anything happened at the house?" inquired Frantz tremblingly. "No, Monsieur Frantz." "Is my brother at home?" "No, Monsieur slept at the factory." "No one sick?" "No, Monsieur Frantz, no one, so far as I know." Thereupon Frantz made up his mind to ring at the small gate. The gardener was raking the paths. The house was astir; and, early as it was, he heard Sidonie's voice as clear and vibrating as the song of a bird among the rose-bushes of the facade. She was talking with animation. Frantz, deeply moved, drew near to listen. "No, no cream. The 'cafe parfait' will be enough. Be sure that it's well frozen and ready at seven o'clock. Oh! about an entree--let us see--" She was holding council with her cook concerning the famous dinner-party for the next day. Her brother-in-law's sudden appearance did not disconcert her. "Ah! good-morning, Frantz," she said very coolly. "I am at your service directly. We're to have some people to dinner to-morrow, customers of the firm, a grand business dinner. You'll excuse me, won't you?" Fresh and smiling, in the white ruffles of her trailing morning-gown and her little lace cap, she continued to discuss her menu, inhaling the cool air that rose from the fields and the river. There was not the slightest trace of chagrin or anxiety upon that tranquil face, which was a striking contrast to the lover's features, distorted by a night of agony and fatigue. For a long quarter of an hour Frantz, sitting in a corner of the salon, saw all the conventional dishes of a bourgeois dinner pass before him in their regular order, from the little hot pates, the sole Normande and the innumerable ingredients of which that dish is composed, to the Montreuil peaches and Fontainebleau grapes. At last, when they were alone and he was able to speak, he asked in a hollow voice: "Didn't you receive my letter?" "Why, yes, of course."