Thomas Lindet stood at his window thinking. One by one the lights died out in the town. A candle had been shining through the curtain in Madame Leroux’s bedroom for an hour, and now that was extinguished. The red glow of the forge at the corner had become fainter. For long it had shot a scarlet glare over the pavement, and had roared before the bellows. The clink on the anvil was hushed, the shutters were closed, and only a feeble glimmer shone through their chinks, and under the door. The watch had closed the tavern of the ‘Golden Cross.’ None traversed the square. Lindet saw a light still in Madame Aubin’s windows. She had a child ill, and was sitting up with it. There was a glimmer also from the window of M. François Corbelin, and the strains of a violin issued from his room. There was no moon now. The stars shone in the black vault above, and the priest fixed his eyes upon them. Save for the violin, all was hushed; the frogs indeed trilled as usual, but the curé was so accustomed to the sound that he did not hear them, or rather did not know that his ear received their clamorous notes. Then suddenly he heard the baying of some hounds, distant, but approaching. A moment after, Lindet saw a figure dart across the market-place, with extended arms, and rush to his door. Looking fixedly at the form, he distinguished it to be that of a woman. She struck at his door, and gasped, ‘Let me in! they are after me.’ ‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ asked the curé from his window. ‘Oh! quick, let me in,’ she cried; ‘the dogs! the dogs!’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘I am Gabrielle----’ she broke off with a scream, for instantly from the street, out of which she had started, appeared the bloodhounds, baying and tracking her. ‘For God’s sake! or they will tear me!’ she cried. Lindet flung himself down the stairs, tore the door open, beat off the dogs with a staff he snatched up, as the girl sprang in; then slammed and barred the door upon the brutes. ‘Have they hurt you?’ She could not answer; her breath was nearly gone. ‘Stay there,’ he said; ‘I will light a candle.’ He groped his way to the kitchen, felt for the tinder and steel, and struck a light. Having kindled from it a little lamp, he returned to the girl. She had sunk upon the ground beside the door, outside of which the hounds leaped and barked, and at which they attempted to burrow. ‘How came you here?’ asked the curé. He set down the lamp, and raised her from the floor in his arms. ‘I have escaped,’ she gasped. ‘I ran. They are after me.’ Voices were now heard without, calling off the dogs. ‘Bah! she has taken refuge with her dear friend the curé. I thought as much.’ The voice was that of Foulon. ‘Sacré!’ exclaimed Berthier; ‘I wish we had discovered her flight a little earlier. I wish the dogs had brought her down in the forest. Sacré! I wish----’