The greyish light of dawn was stealing through the chamber. A few wounded in the next apartment were beginning to be attacked by fever; they might be heard calling on their wives and mothers. A little later, the hum of voices and the footsteps of people coming to and fro broke the still silence of the night. Catherine and Louise awoke; and the first sight that met their eyes was Jean-Claude sitting in a corner of the window-seat, gazing affectionately upon them; and, ashamed of their apparent laziness, they rose at once, to go and embrace him. "Well?" said Catherine, inquiringly. "Well, they are gone; we are left masters of the route, as I foresaw." This assurance did not appear to tranquillise the old farm-mistress; she had to look out of window, and see with her own eyes the Germans in full retreat as far as Alsace. And even then all the remainder of the day her stern countenance still preserved the expression of an indefinable anxiety. Between eight and nine o'clock, the pastor Saumaize arrived from the village of Charmes. Some mountaineers then came down to the foot of the mountain to carry away the dead; they then dug, to the right of the farm, a long ditch, where volunteers and _kaiserlicks_, whether clad in uniform or coats, hats or shakos, were quietly ranged side by side. The pastor Saumaize, a tall old man, with white hair, read the ancient form of prayer for the dead in that rapid and mysterious tone which penetrates to the very bottom of the soul, and seems to invoke bygone generations to attest to the living the horrors of the tomb. All day long carriages and _schlittes_[11] kept arriving to remove the wounded, who were imploring to be allowed to see their native village once more. Doctor Lorquin, fearing to increase their irritation, was forced to consent to it. About four o'clock Catherine and Hullin found themselves alone in the large house-room of the farm. Louise had gone to prepare the supper. Out of doors large flakes of snow continued to fall from the skies, and lay thick upon the window-ledges, and from moment to moment a sleigh was to be seen setting out silently with its sick burden lying buried in the straw; sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, leading the horse by the bridle. Catherine, seated by the table, was folding bandages with an absent air. "Why, what's the matter with you, Catherine?" inquired Hullin. "Since this morning I have noticed how low-spirited you seem. And yet everything is prospering with us." The old farm-mistress, then slowly pushing back the linen from her, replied: "It is true, Jean-Claude; I am troubled."