‘You may imagine how I felt under the doorway,’ concluded Christine. ‘I knew well enough that I was not at Passy, and that I should have to spend the night there, in this terrible Paris. And there was the thunder and the lightning--those horrible blue and red flashes, which showed me things that made me tremble.’ She closed her eyelids once more, she shivered, and the colour left her cheeks as, in her fancy, she again beheld the tragic city--that line of quays stretching away in a furnace-like blaze, the deep moat of the river, with its leaden waters obstructed by huge black masses, lighters looking like lifeless whales, and bristling with motionless cranes which stretched forth gallows-like arms. Was that a welcome to Paris? Again did silence fall. Claude had resumed his drawing. But she became restless, her arm was getting stiff. ‘Just put your elbow a little lower, please,’ said Claude. Then, with an air of concern, as if to excuse his curtness: ‘Your parents will be very uneasy, if they have heard of the accident.’ ‘I have no parents.’ ‘What! neither father nor mother? You are all alone in the world?’ ‘Yes; all alone.’ She was eighteen years old, and had been born in Strasburg, quite by chance, though, between two changes of garrison, for her father was a soldier, Captain Hallegrain. Just as she entered upon her twelfth year, the captain, a Gascon, hailing from Montauban, had died at Clermont, where he had settled when paralysis of the legs had obliged him to retire from active service. For nearly five years afterwards, her mother, a Parisian by birth, had remained in that dull provincial town, managing as well as she could with her scanty pension, but eking it out by fan-painting, in order that she might bring up her daughter as a lady. She had, however, now been dead for fifteen months, and had left her child penniless and unprotected, without a friend, save the Superior of the Sisters of the Visitation, who had kept her with them. Christine had come straight to Paris from the convent, the Superior having succeeded in procuring her a situation as reader and companion to her old friend, Madame Vanzade, who was almost blind. At these additional particulars, Claude sat absolutely speechless. That convent, that well-bred orphan, that adventure, all taking so romantic a turn, made him relapse into embarrassment again, into all his former awkwardness of gesture and speech. He had left off drawing, and sat looking, with downcast eyes, at his sketch. ‘Is Clermont pretty?’ he asked, at last. ‘Not very; it’s a gloomy town. Besides, I don’t know; I scarcely ever went out.’ She was resting on her elbow, and continued, as if talking to herself in a very low voice, still tremulous from the thought of her bereavement.