He reached the inn, breathless.  It is when, storm-beaten and struggling in the invisible convulsions of the soul until he knows not whether he is in life or in death, that all the delicacy of a man’s affection for his loved ones, being yet unimpaired, proves a heart true.  When all else is swallowed up, tenderness still floats unshattered.  Not to awaken Dea too suddenly was Gwynplaine’s first thought.  He approached the inn with as little noise as possible.  He recognized the nook, the old dog kennel, where Govicum used to sleep.  In it, contiguous to the lower room, was a window opening on to the field.  Gwynplaine tapped softly at the pane.  It would be enough to awaken Govicum, he thought.

There was no sound in Govicum’s room.

“At his age,” said Gwynplaine, “a boy sleeps soundly.”

With the back of his hand he knocked against the window gently.  Nothing stirred.

He knocked louder twice.  Still nothing stirred.  Then, feeling somewhat uneasy, he went to the door of the inn and knocked.  No one answered.  He reflected, and began to feel a cold shudder come over him.

“Master Nicless is old, children sleep soundly, and old men heavily.  Courage! louder!”

He had tapped, he had knocked, he had kicked the door; now he flung himself against it.

This recalled to him a distant memory of Weymouth, when, a little child, he had carried Dea, an infant, in his arms.

He battered the door again violently, like a lord, which, alas! he was.

The house remained silent.  He felt that he was losing his head.  He no longer thought of caution.  He shouted,—­

“Nicless!  Govicum!”

At the same time he looked up at the windows, to see if any candle was lighted.  But the inn was blank.  Not a voice, not a sound, not a glimmer of light.  He went to the gate and knocked at it, kicked against it, and shook it, crying out wildly,—­

“Ursus!  Homo!”

The wolf did not bark.

A cold sweat stood in drops upon his brow.  He cast his eyes around.  The night was dark; but there were stars enough to render the fair-green visible.  He saw—­a melancholy sight to him—­that everything on it had vanished.

There was not a single caravan.  The circus was gone.  Not a tent, not a booth, not a cart, remained.  The strollers, with their thousand noisy cries, who had swarmed there, had given place to a black and sullen void.

All were gone.

The madness of anxiety took possession of him.  What did this mean?  What had happened?  Was no one left?  Could it be that life had crumbled away behind him?  What had happened to them all?  Good heavens!  Then he rushed like a tempest against the house.  He struck the small door, the gate, the windows, the window-shutters, the walls, with fists and feet, furious with terror and agony of mind.

He called Nicless, Govicum, Fibi, Vinos, Ursus, Homo.  He tried every shout and every sound against this wall.  At times he waited and listened; but the house remained mute and dead.  Then, exasperated, he began again with blows, shouts, and repeated knockings, re-echoed all around.  It might have been thunder trying to awake the grave.