However, Bertheroy rose and took his leave: "I'll come back; behave
sensibly, and love one another as well as you can."

When the brothers again found themselves alone, Pierre seated at
Guillaume's bedside, their hands once more sought each other and met in a
burning clasp instinct with all their anguish. How much threatening
mystery and distress there was both around and within them! The grey
wintry daylight came into the room, and they could see the black trees in
the garden, while the house remained full of quivering silence, save that
overhead a faint sound of footsteps was audible. They were the steps of
Nicholas Barthes, the heroic lover of freedom, who, rising at daybreak,
had, like a caged lion, resumed his wonted promenade, the incessant
coming and going of one who had ever been a prisoner. And as the brothers
ceased listening to him their eyes fell on a newspaper which had remained
open on the bed, a newspaper soiled by a sketch in outline which
pretended to portray the poor dead errand girl, lying, ripped open,
beside the bandbox and the bonnet it had contained. It was so frightful,
so atrociously hideous a scene, that two big tears again fell upon
Pierre's cheeks, whilst Guillaume's blurred, despairing eyes gazed
wistfully far away, seeking for the Future.



II

A HOME OF INDUSTRY

THE little house in which Guillaume had dwelt for so many years, a home
of quietude and hard work, stood in the pale light of winter up yonder at