With these words he turned his back on me. Villaret had gone off without saying a word. M. Gerson and his grandson had disappeared silently in a covered country cart hermetically closed. A stout, ruddy, thick-set matronly woman was waiting for them, but the coachman looked as though he were in the service of well-to-do people. General Pelissier’s son, who had not uttered a word since we had left Gonesse, had disappeared like a ball from the hands of a conjurer. Théodore Joussian politely offered to accompany us, and I was so weary that I accepted his offer. He picked up our bag and began to walk at full speed, so that we had difficulty in keeping up with him. He was so breathless with the walk that he could not talk, which was a great relief to me. Finally we arrived at the house and entered, but my horror was great on seeing that the hall of the hotel had been transformed into a dormitory. We could scarcely walk between the mattresses laid down on the ground, and the grumbling of the people was by no means promising. When once we were in the office a young girl in mourning told us that there was not a room vacant. I sank down on a chair, and Mlle. Soubise leaned against the wall with her arms hanging down, looking most dejected. The odious Joussian then yelled out that they could not let two women as young as we were be out in the street all night. He went to the proprietress of the hotel and said something quietly about me. I do not know what it was, but I heard my name distinctly. The young woman in mourning then looked up with moist eyes. “My brother was a poet,” she said. “He wrote a very pretty sonnet about you after seeing you play in _Le Passant_ more than ten times. He took me, too, to see you, and I enjoyed myself so much that night. It is all over, though.” She lifted her hands towards her head and sobbed, trying to stifle back her cries. “It’s all over!” she repeated. “He is dead! They have killed him! It is all over! All over!” I got up, moved to the depth of my being by this terrible grief. I put my arms round her and kissed her, crying myself, and whispering to her words of comfort and hope.