He put his delicate hands together. The mechanism of the clock whirred, and then midnight struck. The notes boomed over the sleeping town, and lost themselves among the wooded hills. All at once Lindet’s mind turned to the poor child for whose preservation he had laboured ineffectually that day. Then, fervently, he prayed for her. She was seated at the window in Madame Plomb’s antechamber, fast asleep, with her head on her hands. The window was wide open, and the shutters were back, so that the moon and air entered, and made the chamber light and balmy. About nine o’clock, the cook had been to madame’s room to tell Gabrielle that she was to sleep with her at the other end of the house; but Madame Berthier, full of violence, had struck and driven the woman out of the room, and she had retired, very angry, and threatening to tell ‘Monsieur.’ The woman had been as good as her word; but Berthier and Foulon being together in the billiard-room playing, she had not ventured to interrupt them till they left, which was at midnight. The cook was very angry, and, like an insulted servant, threatened to leave the house. ‘Ah! so so!’ exclaimed Berthier. ‘We shall see. You were right to obey my orders. Gustave! come here; follow me, Antoinette; the girl shall be removed immediately, awake or asleep, by gentleness or by force.’ The silver light struck across the face of the sleeping girl, still wet with tears, and streaked the floor. An acacia intercepted some of the light, and as a light wind stirred, it produced an uneasy shiver over the floor. A leaf, caught in a cobweb, pattered timidly against one of the window-panes. A ghost-moth fluttered about the room, its white wings gleaming in the moonlight, as it swerved and wheeled, while its shadow swerved and wheeled in rhythm, on the sheet of Gabrielle’s couch, as though there were two moths, one white, the other black, dancing up and down before one another. The shadows of the acacia foliage made faces on the floor. Dark profiles, hatchet-shaped, with glistening eyes and mouths that opened and shut, faces of old women munching silently, silhouettes of demons butting with their horns, or nodding, as though they would say,--Wait, wait, wait! We shall see!