The woman, trembling in a chair, muttered that they had sacked La Vierge, the red cabaret, and that the bald head was a town-councillor's, her neighbour's. But I did not stay to listen. I left her where she was, and, hurrying down again, unbarred the door and went out. All was strangely quiet again. The morning sun shone bright and warm on the long empty street, and seemed to give the lie to the thing I had seen. Not a living creature was visible this way or that; not a face at the window. I stood a moment in the middle of the road, disconcerted; puzzled by the bright stillness, and uncertain which way I had been going. At last I remembered the woman's directions, and set off on the heels of the mob, until I reached the first turning on the right. I took this, and had not gone a hundred yards before I recognised, a little in front of me, Madame Catinot's house. It showed to the sunshine a wide blind front, long rows of shuttered windows, and not a sign of life. Nevertheless, here was something I knew, something which wore a semblance of familiarity, and I hailed it with hope; and, flinging myself on the door, knocked long and recklessly. The noise seemed fit to wake the dead; it boomed and echoed in every doorway of the empty street, that on the evening of my arrival had teemed with traffic; I shivered at the sound--I shivered standing conspicuous on the steps of the house, expecting a score of windows to be opened and heads thrust out. But I had not yet learned how the extremity of panic benumbs; or how strong is the cowardly instinct that binds the peaceful man to his hearth when blood flows in the streets. Not a face showed at a casement, not a door opened; worse, though I knocked again and again, the house I would awaken remained dead and silent. I stood back and gazed at it, and returned, and hammered again, thinking this time nothing of myself. But without result. Or not quite. Far away at the end of the street the echo of my knocking dwelt a little, then grew into a fuller, deeper sound--a sound I knew. The mob was returning. I cursed my folly then for lingering; thought of the passage in the rear of the house that led to the church, found the entrance to it, and in a moment was speeding through it. The distant roar grew nearer and louder, but now I could see the low door of the church, and I slackened my pace a little. As I did so the door before me opened, and a man looked out. I saw his face before he saw me, and read it; saw terror, shame, and rage written on its mean features; and in some strange way I knew what he was going to do before he did it. A moment he glared abroad, blinking and shading his eyes in the sunshine, then he spied me, slid out, and with an indescribable Judas look at me, fled away.