The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city? It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see, across the plain of heads, what was happening in front. A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of the house itself, a space was still kept clear by the fire of those within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the ranks of the mob, and darting across this open space to the door, would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back, or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine. It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush _en masse_ which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while the whole, the writhing crowd, the open space with its wounded, the ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pass indeed. If not, I was dreaming.