But now the gate is abruptly closed like a last barrier between him and his persistent hope.  Once more the station is empty.  The uproar has been transferred to the line of the railway, and suddenly a shrill whistle falls upon the lover’s ear like an ironical farewell, then dies away in the darkness.

The ten o’clock train has gone!

He tries to be calm and to reason.  Evidently she missed the train from Asmeres; but, knowing that he is waiting for her, she will come, no matter how late it may be.  He will wait longer.  The waiting-room was made for that.

The unhappy man sits down on a bench.  The prospect of a long vigil brings to his mind a well-known room in which at that hour the lamp burns low on a table laden with humming-birds and insects, but that vision passes swiftly through his mind in the chaos of confused thoughts to which the delirium of suspense gives birth.

And while he thus lost himself in thought, the hours passed.  The roofs of the buildings of Mazas, buried in darkness, were already beginning to stand out distinctly against the brightening sky.  What was he to do?  He must go to Asnieres at once and try to find out what had happened.  He wished he were there already.

Having made up his mind, he descended the steps of the station at a rapid pace, passing soldiers with their knapsacks on their backs, and poor people who rise early coming to take the morning train, the train of poverty and want.

In front of one of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and countrywomen.  Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its denouement before the Commissioner of Police.  Ah! if Frantz had known what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently from a distance.

When he reached Asnieres, after a walk of two or three hours, it was like an awakening.  The sun, rising in all its glory, set field and river on fire.  The bridge, the houses, the quay, all stood forth with that matutinal sharpness of outline which gives the impression of a new day emerging, luminous and smiling, from the dense mists of the night.  From a distance he descried his brother’s house, already awake, the open blinds and the flowers on the window-sills.  He wandered about some time before he could summon courage to enter.

Suddenly some one hailed him from the shore: 

“Ah!  Monsieur Frantz.  How early you are today!”

It was Sidonie’s coachman taking his horses to bathe in the river.

“Has anything happened at the house?” inquired Frantz tremblingly.

“No, Monsieur Frantz.”

“Is my brother at home?”

“No, Monsieur slept at the factory.”

“No one sick?”

“No, Monsieur Frantz, no one, so far as I know.”

Thereupon Frantz made up his mind to ring at the small gate.  The gardener was raking the paths.  The house was astir; and, early as it was, he heard Sidonie’s voice as clear and vibrating as the song of a bird among the rose-bushes of the facade.