At last M. le Cure found utterance.  His voice so moved the silence, that at first my heart was faint with fear; it was hoarse, and the sound rolled round the great square like muffled thunder.  One did not seem to know what strange faces might rise at the open windows, what terrors might appear.  But all he said was, ‘We are ambassadors in vain.’

What was it that followed?  My teeth chattered.  I could not hear.  It was as if ‘in vain!—­in vain!’ came back in echoes, more and more distant from every opening.  They breathed all around us, then were still, then returned louder from beyond the river.  M. le Cure, though he is a spiritual person, was no more courageous than I. With one impulse, we put out our hands and grasped each other.  We retreated back to back, like men hemmed in by foes, and I felt his heart beating wildly, and he mine.  Then silence, silence settled all around.

It was now my turn to speak.  I would not be behind, come what might, though my lips were parched with mental trouble.

I said, ‘Are we indeed too late?  Lecamus must have deceived himself.’

To this there came no echo and no reply, which would be a relief, you may suppose; but it was not so.  It was well-nigh more appalling, more terrible than the sound; for though we spoke thus, we did not believe the place was empty.  Those whom we approached seemed to be wrapping themselves in silence, invisible, waiting to speak with some awful purpose when their time came.

There we stood for some minutes, like two children, holding each other’s hands, leaning against each other at the corner of the square—­as helpless as children, waiting for what should come next.  I say it frankly, my brain and my heart were one throb.  They plunged and beat so wildly that I could scarcely have heard any other sound.  In this respect I think he was more calm.  There was on his face that look of intense listening which strains the very soul.  But neither he nor I heard anything, not so much as a whisper.  At last, ‘Let us go on,’ I said.  We stumbled as we went, with agitation and fear.  We were afraid to turn our backs to those empty houses, which seemed to gaze at us with all their empty windows pale and glaring.  Mechanically, scarce knowing what I was doing, I made towards my own house.

There was no one there.  The rooms were all open and empty.  I went from one to another, with a sense of expectation which made my heart faint; but no one was there, nor anything changed.  Yet I do wrong to say that nothing was changed.  In my library, where I keep my books, where my father and grandfather conducted their affairs, like me, one little difference struck me suddenly, as if some one had dealt me a blow.  The old bureau which my grandfather had used, at which I remember standing by his knee, had been drawn from the corner where I had placed it out of the way (to make room for the furniture I preferred), and replaced, as in old times,