And still the group remained there, motionless, wild and woeful, the mother and her two little ones, all three with long light loose hair. And still the frightful shrieking went on, that cry of the blood-tie which rises from the forest when the hunters have killed the sire. Madame Caroline had risen, her head whirling. There were sounds of steps and voices; a doctor, no doubt, had come to verify the death. And she could remain no longer, but ran away, pursued by that abominable and endless wail, which she fancied she still heard, amid the rolling of the passing vehicles, when she had reached the street. It was growing dark; the night was cold, and she walked slowly, fearing that people might arrest her, taking her for a murderess, with her haggard look. Everything rose up before her--the whole story of that monstrous crash, which had piled up so many ruins and crushed so many victims. What mysterious force was it then which, after building that golden tower so quickly, had just destroyed it? The same hands that had constructed it seemed to have become infuriated with it, seized with a fit of madness, determined not to leave one stone of it standing on another. Cries of sorrow arose on all sides; fortunes crumbled with a sound akin to that which is heard when the refuse of demolished houses is emptied into a public 'shoot.' The last domains of the Beauvilliers, the savings of Dejoie scraped together sou by sou, the profits which Sédille had realised from his silk-works, the bonds of the Maugendres, who had lately retired from business, were all flung pell-mell, with a crash, into the depths of the same cloaca, which nothing seemed to fill up. There were also Jantrou, drowned in alcohol; La Sandorff, drowned in mire; Massias, again forced to lead the wretched life of a dog, chained for ever to the Bourse by debt; Flory, a thief, in prison, expiating the weaknesses of his soft heart; and Sabatani and Fayeux, fugitives, galloping off in fear of the gendarmes. And there were the unknown victims, still more distressing and pitiable, the great flock of all the poor that the catastrophe had made--the poor, shivering in abandonment, crying with hunger. Then, too, there was death--the pistol-shots that re-echoed from the four corners of Paris; there was Mazaud's smashed head and Mazaud's blood, which, drop by drop, amid the luxury of a drawing-room and the perfume of roses, bespattered his wife and his little ones, shrieking with grief.