“Is that you, Auguste?” said a hoarse, sickly woman’s voice, proceeding from the door of the opposite chamber.  “Why don’t you bring me the candle?”

“No, Madame,” said Henri, “the gentleman is now downstairs.  He lent me your candle for a minute or two, while I call upon my friend here.  I hope you’ll excuse the noise I make, but I find it very difficult to wake him.”

“And why should you want to wake him?” said the woman.  “It’s three nights now since he stretched himself on a bed, and he’ll be up again long before daylight.  Give me the candle, and go away, and tell that unfortunate poor man below to come to his bed.”

There was a tone of utter misery in the poor woman’s voice, which touched Henri to the heart.  She had uttered no complaint of her own sufferings; but the few words she had spoken made him feel all the wretchedness and the desolation of homes, which he and his friends had brought upon the people by the war; and he almost began to doubt whether even the cause of the King should have been supported at so terrible a cost.  He could not, however, now go back, nor was he willing to abandon his present object, so he again shook and kicked the door.

“That’ll never rouse him, though you should go on all night,” said a little urchin about twelve years old, the eldest hope of M. and Madame Plume, who rushed out on the landing in his ragged shirt.  “If Monsieur will give me a sou, I’ll wake him.”  Henri engaged him at the price, and the boy, putting his mouth down to the key-hole, said, or rather whispered loudly, “Captain—­Captain—­Captain—­the blues—­the blues.”

This shibboleth had the desired effect, for the man within was instantly heard to start from his bed, and to step out upon the floor.

“Yes, yes; I’m ready, I’m up,” said he, in the confused voice of a man suddenly awoke from a sound sleep.  “Where’s Plume? send Plume to me at once.”

Henri immediately recognized the voice of Adolphe Denot, and all doubt was at an end.  Denot came to the door, and undid the wooden bolt within, to admit, as he thought, the poor zealous creature who had attached himself to him in his new career; and when the door opened, the friend of his youth—­the man whom he had so deeply injured—­stood before him.  Henri, in his anxiety to find out the truth of Chapeau’s surmise, had energetically and, as it turned out, successfully pursued the object of his search; but he had not for a moment turned over in his mind, what he would say to Denot if he found him; how he would contrive to tell him that he forgave him all his faults; how he would explain to him that he was willing again to receive him into his arms as a friend and a brother.  The moment was now come, when he must find words to say all this; and as the awkward bolt was being drawn, Henri felt that he was hardly equal to the difficulties of his position.