‘What is it, madame?’ ‘Nothing! I thought I heard a knocking at the street door, that is all.’ ‘I heard nothing. But, then, I was nearly asleep.’ ‘Best so.’ Her voice thickened. ‘Get all the sleep you can—in preparation for the morrow!’ As she snatched up her knitting, he stared at her, all drowsiness dissipated by her words. He watched her furious energy, trying the while to conceive some adequate motive for her unusual vigil and her evident wish for his own company. Of a sudden, instinct supplied the knowledge. _Madame was waiting for something to happen._ Like vultures scenting their prey, his nerves instantly swooped down on their victim, agonising him with the refined torture of mirage. As the parched traveller feasts hollow eyes on waving date-palm and bubbling well, so Quality, with aching intensity of longing, saw a clear picture of his own familiar room. He smelt the faint odour of worn leather; heard the crackling whisper of the wood fire; felt the muzzle of his hound moist against his hand. Would the day never come? He looked at the clock, crookedly upheld by misshapen gilded cupids. Only a quarter to twelve. Slowly, slowly, the minutes ticked away. The night was dying hard. Presently, Quality noticed that madame had laid down her needles and was again listening. Her tense attitude, flattened ears, and craning neck told of an intensity of purpose that would strain her aural organs beyond the limits of their powers. He saw her sudden start—the involuntary wince. ‘_Footsteps_, m’sieur! Do you not hear them? Footsteps without in the street!’ ‘I can hear nothing!’ ‘But they are passing this way. Open the window, and see if there is anyone in the street!’ _What_ was she? Quality could not decide. Merely the shrewd, suspicious housewife, with natural fears—or the composite fearsome creation of his diseased imagination? With the reluctant step of one who fears a snare, he walked to the window, and, opening it, looked out into the street. A deep tranquillity reigned without. The old houses, steeped in the milky bath of moonshine, seemed to sway gently, as though in sleep; the sable shadow of the drinking-fountain seemed to rock, as though the ancient town slumbered to the croon of some unheard lullaby. ‘Ah, how peaceful!’ Madame had arisen and was now standing by his side. Her breath, onion-flavoured from her last meal, fell on his cheek in hot puffs. ‘What a picture! And see the leaves, how they fly!’ At a sudden gust of wind, the withered foliage arose from the bare boughs like a flock of birds, and soared into the air in a mad ecstasy of flight—rising, wheeling, swooping—only to sink, feebly fluttering, to the pavement. With a cold chill of premonition, Quality recalled his own dream of impotent flight. ‘See, the floating leaves are like _revenants_! Or, perhaps, the souls—ever rising in their thousands—swarming from field and trench. Whither? Whither?—Ah!’