He gazed at the distant prospect, and sought the outline of the ruins against the horizon. But nothing was visible except the tall trees that crowned the park, which were only dimly discernible. A little behind to the right of them lay the Cats' Bridge. He could fancy her emerging from those trees with the troop of remorselessly cruel Frenchmen following her, bent on their work of blood. How terrible must the regular echo of their marching feet have sounded in her ears. Deeper and deeper into the wood they must have gone, till they reached that ravine which ran parallel with the thicket, almost in a half-circle. She had never told him the road she had taken, but he saw exactly how it had all happened. Everything was as plain as if he had been there himself and seen it with his own eyes. He stretched out his arm, and with a trembling finger traced the path against the horizon. And afterwards when they let her go, and she had made her way home alone, with the wages of her sin in her pocket--how the cracking of bullets, the beating of drums, the clouds of gunpowder, the death-shrieks of the massacred, must have followed her, galloping at her heels like an army of furies! How she had gone on living with those awful sounds ringing in her head, those ghastly pictures floating before her eyes, he could not understand. If he had been in her place he would have sought instant deliverance in the first halter or pond that came handy. But not she! Visions were no terror to her. Her conscience, instead of tormenting itself, was apparently scarcely conscious of its guilt. She had only the feelings of an animal or a demon. He shuddered. And it was to her, _her_, that he had been on the brink of succumbing! Then in his sore distress he flung himself across the grave, face downwards in the snow, folded his hands and stammered forth an incoherent prayer, while tears gushed from his eyes. The intense cold of his exposed position stung his face, and drove him to stand up again. He patrolled the row of graves, unable to evolve a single rational thought. He felt as if he were caught in a brazen net, that was drawing its meshes tighter and tighter around him. "God in Heaven," he cried aloud, "visit not the sins of the fathers on me! Let the dead sleep.... _I_ have not murdered them. Let something happen, a miracle, a sign, that I may be shown that Thou wilt not have me perish in this anguish of despair." He cast his eye round him as if looking for help. But coldly and unsympathetically the moonlit, lead-coloured sky looked down on him. There was no sign, no miracle. He laughed. "You are becoming imbecile," he murmured inwardly. An unspeakable exhaustion overwhelmed him. He reeled, and his feet gave way beneath him. The next moment he was sitting in the cavity which the weight of his prostrate figure had made in the snow. He drew up the collar of his coat, and nearly frozen, brooded on, half sleeping, half waking.