“My poor Françoise, you had better come along with us. A lone woman among such dreadful sights—I can’t bear to think of it!” She raised her trembling hands. “Ah, sir, I would have gone when the others went, indeed I would, if it had not been for my poor sick boy. Come in, sir, and look at him.” He did not enter, but glanced into the apartment from the threshold, and shook his head sorrowfully at sight of the little fellow in his clean, white bed, his face exhibiting the scarlet hue of the disease, and his glassy, burning eyes bent wistfully on his mother. “But why can’t you take him with you?” he urged. “I will find quarters for you in Sedan. Wrap him up warmly in a blanket, and come along with us.” “Oh, no, sir, I cannot. The doctor told me it would kill him. If only his poor father were alive! but we two are all that are left, and we must live for each other. And then, perhaps the Prussians will be merciful; perhaps they won’t harm a lone woman and a sick boy.” Just then Weiss reappeared, having secured his premises to his satisfaction. “There, I think it will trouble them some to get in now. Come on! And it is not going to be a very pleasant journey, either; keep close to the houses, unless you want to come to grief.” There were indications, indeed, that the enemy were making ready for another assault. The infantry fire was spluttering away more furiously than ever, and the screaming of the shells was incessant. Two had already fallen in the street a hundred yards away, and a third had imbedded itself, without bursting, in the soft ground of the adjacent garden. “Ah, here is Françoise,” continued the accountant. “I must have a look at your little Charles. Come, come, you have no cause for alarm; he will be all right in a couple of days. Keep your courage up, and the first thing you do go inside, and don’t put your nose outside the door.” And the two men at last started to go. “_Au revoir_, Françoise.” “_Au revoir_, sirs.” And as they spoke, there came an appalling crash. It was a shell, which, having first wrecked the chimney of Weiss’s house, fell upon the sidewalk, where it exploded with such terrific force as to break every window in the vicinity. At first it was impossible to distinguish anything in the dense cloud of dust and smoke that rose in the air, but presently this drifted away, disclosing the ruined facade of the dyehouse, and there, stretched across the threshold, Françoise, a corpse, horribly torn and mangled, her skull crushed in, a fearful spectacle. Weiss sprang to her side. Language failed him; he could only express his feelings by oaths and imprecations. “_Nom de Dieu!_ _Nom de Dieu!_”