y were confounded, if I
could judge rightly. Then there arose cries from one to another: 'Do you
forget what was said to us?' and, 'We were warned, we were warned.'
There went a sighing over all the city: 'They cannot hear us, our voices
are not as their voices; they cannot see us. We have taken their homes
from them, and they know not the reason.' My heart was wrung for their
disappointment. I longed to tell them that neither had I heard at once;
but it was only after a time that I ventured upon this. And whether I
spoke, and was heard; or if it was read in my heart, I cannot tell.
There was a pause made round me as if of wondering and listening, and
then, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a face suddenly turned
and looked into my face.

M. le Maire, it was the face of your father, Martin Dupin, whom I
remember as well as I remember my own father. He was the best man I ever
knew. It appeared to me for a moment, that face alone, looking at me
with questioning eyes.

There seemed to be agitation and doubt for a time after this; some went
out (so I understood) on embassies among you, but could get no hearing;
some through the gates, some by the river. And the bells were rung that
you might hear and know; but neither could you understand the bells. I
wandered from one place to another, listening and watching--till the
unseen became to me as the seen, and I thought of the wonder no more.
Sometimes there came to me vaguely a desire to question them, to ask
whence they came and what was the secret of their living, and why they
were here? But if I had asked who would have heard me? and desire had
grown faint in my heart; all I wished for was that you should hear, that
you should understand; with this wish Semur was full. They thought but
of this. They went to the walls in bands, each in their order, and as
they came all the others rushed to meet them, to ask, 'What news?' I
following, now with one, now with another, breathless and footsore as
they glided along. It is terrible when flesh and blood live with those
who are spirits. I toiled after them. I sat on the Cathedral steps, and
slept and waked, and heard the voices still in my dream. I prayed, but
it was hard to pray. Once following a crowd I entered your house, M. le
Maire, and went up, though I scarcely could drag myself along. There
many were assembled as in council. Your father was at the head of all.
He was the one, he only, who knew me. Again he looked at me