Above at the farm Catherine had heard, too, the ominous mutter and came to the door of the salle. From there she could see the purple cloud itself, convoluted and solid, and its sinister shadow lying over the hills. The oncoming of the storm added to her sense of uneasiness at finding herself all alone in the house. Michel had not come up. She would have welcomed Michel, to whom she hardly ever spoke, simply as a person belonging to the usual order of things. She was not talkative, but somehow she would have liked somebody to speak to just for a moment. This cessation of all sound, voices or footsteps, around the buildings was not welcome; but looking at the cloud, she thought that there would be noise enough presently. However, stepping back into the kitchen, she was met by a sound that made her regret the oppressive silence, by its piercing and terrifying character; it was a shriek in the upper part of the house, where, as far as she knew, there was only Arlette asleep. In her attempt to cross the kitchen to the foot of the stairs the weight of her accumulated years fell upon the old woman. She felt suddenly very feeble and hardly able to breathe. And all at once the thought “Scevola! Was he murdering her up there?” paralysed the last remnant of her physical powers. What else could it be? She fell, as if shot, into a chair under the first shock and found herself unable to move. Only her brain remained active, and she raised her hands to her eyes as if to shut out the image of the horrors upstairs. She heard nothing more from above. Arlette was dead. She thought that now it was her turn. While her body quailed before the brutal violence, her weary spirit longed ardently for the end. Let him come! Let all this be over at last, with a blow on the head or a stab in the breast. She had not the courage to uncover her eyes. She waited. But after about a minute--it seemed to her interminable--she heard rapid footsteps overhead. Arlette was running here and there. Catherine uncovered her eyes and was about to rise when she heard at the top of the stairs the name of Peyrol shouted with a desperate accent. Then again, after the shortest of pauses, the cry of “Peyrol, Peyrol!” and then the sound of feet running downstairs. There was another shriek, “Peyrol!” just outside the door before it flew open. Who was pursuing her? Catherine managed to stand up. Steadying herself with one hand on the table, she presented an undaunted front to her niece, who ran into the kitchen with loose hair flying and the appearance of wildest distraction in her eyes. The staircase door had slammed to behind her. Nobody was pursuing her; and Catherine, putting forth her lean brown arm, arrested Arlette’s flight with such a jerk that the two women swung against each other. She seized her niece by the shoulders. “What is this, in Heaven’s name? Where are you rushing to?” she cried, and the other, as if suddenly exhausted, whispered: “I woke up from an awful dream.”