Hermione herself, Claribel her little sister, Mrs. Leare and the old colored nurse got quickly in.  Mrs. Leare was in tears, with her head muffled in a yard or two of green barege, then the distinctive mark of a travelling American woman.  The child’s-nurse had long gold ear-drops and a head-dress of red bandanna.  There was not a man of any kind with them except the postilion.  The concierge opened the gates of the courtyard.

“Stop! stop!” I cried, and rushed down our own staircase and out of our front door.

As I ran past their entrance a woman put a paper into my hand.  I had no time to glance at it, for the carriage had already turned into the Rue Ponthieu.  For some distance I ran after it, encountering at every step excited groups of people, some of whom seemed to me in search of mischief, while some had apparently come out to gather news.  There were no other carriages in the streets, and that alone enabled me to track the one I was in chase of, for everybody I met had noticed which way it had turned.  It wound its way most deviously through by-streets to avoid those in which paving-stones had been torn up or barricades been formed, and the postilion made all possible speed, fearing the carriage might be seized and detached from his horses.  But the day’s work was finished and the disorders of the night were not begun.

Forced at last to slacken my speed and to take breath, I glanced at the paper that I still held in my hand.  It contained a few words from Hermione:  “Thank you for all the kindness you have tried to show us, dear sir.  My mother has heard that all the English in Paris are to be massacred at midnight by the mob, and directs me to give you notice, which is the reason I address this note to you and not to Amy.  Mamma is afraid of being mistaken for an Englishwoman.  We have secured post-horses and are setting out for Argenteuil, where we shall take the railway.  Again, thank you:  your kindness will not be forgotten by H. LEARE.”

This note reassured me.  I no longer endeavored to overtake the carriage, but I pushed my way as fast as possible beyond the nearest barrier.  Once outside the wall of Paris, I was in the Banlieu, that zone of rascality whose inhabitants are all suspected by the police and live under the ban.  Of course on such a gala-day of lawlessness this hive was all astir.  At a village I passed through I tried to hire a conveyance to Argenteuil.  I also tried to get some railway information, but nobody could tell me anything and all were ravenous for news.  I secured, however, without losing too much time, a seat with a stout young country-man who drove a little country cart with a powerful gray horse, and was going in the direction I wanted to travel.

“What will be the result of this affair?” I said to him when he had got his beast into a steady trot.

He shrugged his shoulders.  A French workingman has a far larger vocabulary at his command than the English laborer.  “Bon Dieu!” he exclaimed:  “who knows what will come of it?  A land without a master is no civilized land.  We shall fall back into barbarism.  What there is certain is, that we shall all be ruined.”