At the noon meal she ate so little that Sister Hyacinthe noticed it, and anxiously asked if she felt worse; but Barbara reassured her and, after a short rest in the house, she asked to be taken out again under the lindens where she had reclined in an armchair that morning.

Scarcely had she seated herself when all the bells in the city began to ring, and the heavy ordnance and howitzers shook the air with their thunder.

What a festal alarum!

How vividly it reminded her of the brilliant exhibitions and festivities which she had formerly attended!

She listened breathlessly to the sounds from the city, and now a distant blare of trumpets drowned the dull roar of the ordnance and the sharp rattle of the culverins.

The confused blending of many human voices reached her from beyond the garden wall.

The road must be full of people.  Now single shrill trumpet notes echoed from afar amid the trombones and the dull roll of the drums, the noise increasing every moment.  From a large, old beech tree close to the wall, into which a dozen lads had climbed, she already saw handkerchiefs waving and heard the shouts of clear, boyish voices.

Sister Hyacinthe had just gone into the house, and like an illumination the thought darted through Barbara’s mind that the road could be seen from the little summer house which the reverend owner of the castle called his “frigidarium,” because it was cool even during the warmest summer day.

It was a small, towerlike building close to the garden wall, whose single inner room was designed to imitate a rock cave.  The walls were covered with tufa and stalagmites, shells, mountain crystals, and corals, and from the lofty ceiling hung large stalactites.  From one of the walls a fountain plashed into a large shell garlanded with green aquatic plants and tenanted by several goldfish and frogs.

The single open window resembled a cleft in the rocks, and looked out upon the road.  Blocks of stone, flung one upon another without regard to order, formed steps from which to look out of doors.

These stairs afforded a view of the road to the city.  Barbara had often used them when watching in the dusk of evening for her lover’s litter or, at a still later hour, for the torch-bearers who preceded it.

She could already walk firmly enough to mount the few rough steps which led to the opening in the rocks and, obeying the tameless yearning of her heart, she rose from the arm-chair and walked as rapidly as her feeble strength permitted toward the frigidarium.

It was more difficult to traverse the path, illumined by the hot July sun, than she had expected; but the pealing of the bells and the roar of the cannon continued, and now it was drowned by the fanfare of the trumpets and the shouts of the people.

All this thundering, ringing, clashing, chiming, and cheering was a greeting to him for the sight of whom her whole being so ardently longed; and when, halfway down the path, she felt the need of resting on a bench under a weeping ash, she did not obey it, but forced herself to totter on.