our most dear!  Do you think we have forgotten you?  We have never forgotten you!’ What could we do with them, weeping thus, smiling, holding out their arms to—­we knew not what?  Even my Agnes was beyond my reach.  Marie was our little girl who was dead.  Those who were thus transported by a knowledge beyond ours were the weakest among us; most of them were women, the men old or feeble, and some children.  I can recollect that I looked for Paul Lecamus among them, with wonder not to see him there.  But though they were weak, they were beyond our strength to guide.  What could we do with them?  How could we force them away while they held to the fancy that those they loved were there?  As it happens in times of emotion, it was those who were most impassioned who took the first place.  We were at our wits’ end.

But while we stood waiting, not knowing what to do, another sound suddenly came from the walls, which made them all silent in a moment.  The most of us ran to this point and that (some taking flight altogether; but with the greater part anxious curiosity and anxiety had for the moment extinguished fear), in a wild eagerness to see who or what it was.  But there was nothing to be seen, though the sound came from the wall close to the Mont St. Lambert, which I have already described.  It was to me like the sound of a trumpet, and so I heard others say; and along with the trumpet were sounds as of words, though I could not make them out.  But those others seemed to understand—­they grew calmer—­they ceased to weep.  They raised their faces, all with that light upon them—­that light I had seen in my Agnes.  Some of them fell upon their knees.  Imagine to yourself what a sight it was, all of us standing round, pale, stupefied, without a word to say!  Then the women suddenly burst forth into replies—­’Oui, ma cherie!  Oui, mon ange!’ they cried.  And while we looked they rose up; they came back, calling the children around them.  My Agnes took that place which I had bidden her take.  She had not hearkened to me, to leave me—­but she hearkened now; and though I had bidden her to do this, yet to see her do it bewildered me, made my heart stand still. ‘Mon ami,’ she said, ’I must leave thee; it is commanded:  they will not have the children suffer.’  What could we do?  We stood pale and looked on, while all the little ones, all the feeble, were gathered in a little army.  My mother stood like me—­to her nothing had been revealed.  She was very pale, and there was a quiver of pain in her lips.  She was the one who had been ready to do my bidding:  but there was a rebellion in her heart now.  When the procession was formed (for it was my care to see that everything was done in order), she followed, but among the last.  Thus they went away, many of them weeping, looking back, waving their hands to us.  My Agnes covered her face, she could not look at me; but she obeyed.  They went some to this side, some to that, leaving us gazing.  For a long time we did