The time had come for us to part.  Solange’s duties at the school began at nine o’clock in the morning.  Her school was in the vicinity of the Botanic Gardens.  I hesitated long to let her go; she, too, was loath to part from me.  But it must be.  Solange was prone to be an object of unpleasant inquiries.

I called a conveyance and Accompanied her as far as the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Bernard, where I got out and left her to pursue her way alone.  All the way we lay mutely wrapped in each other’s arms, mingling tears with our kisses.

After leaving the carriage, I stood as if rooted to the ground.  I heard Solange call me, but I dared not go to her, because her face, moist with tears, and her hysterical manner were calculated to attract attention.

Utterly wretched, I returned home, passing the entire day in writing to Solange.  In the evening I sent her an entire volume of love-pledges.

My letter had hardly gone to the post when I received one from her.

She had been sharply reprimanded for coming late; had been subjected to a severe cross-examination, and threatened with forfeiture of her next holiday.  But she vowed to join me even at the cost of her place.  I thought I should go mad at the prospect of being parted from her a whole week.  I was more depressed because a letter which had arrived from her father appeared to have been tampered with.

I passed a wretched night and a still more miserable day.

The next day the weather was appalling.  Nature seemed to be dissolving in a cold, ceaseless rain—­a rain like that which announces the approach of winter.  All the way to the laboratory my ears were tortured with the criers announcing the names of the condemned, a large number of men, women, and children.  The bloody harvest was over-rich.  I should not lack subjects for my investigations that day.

The day ended early.  At four o’clock I arrived at Clamart; it was almost night.

The view of the cemetery, with its large, new-made graves; the sparse, leafless trees that swayed in the wind, was desolate, almost appalling.

A large, open pit yawned before me.  It was to receive to-day’s harvest from the Place de la Revolution.  An exceedingly large number of victims was expected, for the pit was deeper than usual.

Mechanically I approached the grave.  At the bottom the water had gathered in a pool; my feet slipped; I came within an inch of falling in.  My hair stood on end.  The rain had drenched me to the skin.  I shuddered and hastened into the laboratory.

It was, as I have said, an abandoned chapel.  My eyes searched—­I know not why—­to discover if some traces of the holy purpose to which the edifice had once been devoted did not still adhere to the walls or to the altar; but the walls were bare, the altar empty.

I struck a light and deposited the candle on the operating-table on which lay scattered a miscellaneous assortment of the strange instruments I employed.  I sat down and fell into a reverie.  I thought of the poor queen, whom I had seen in her beauty, glory, and happiness, yesterday carted to the scaffold, pursued by the execrations of a people, to-day lying headless on the common sinners’ bier—­she who had slept beneath the gilded canopy of the throne of the Tuileries and St. Cloud.