l the
atrocities of the Commune that stirred his placid nature and made him
forgetful even of his tenderest affections, there were none that angered
him as did those conflagrations. What, burn houses, set fire to palaces,
and simply because they had lost the battle! Only robbers and murderers
were capable of such work as that. And he who but the day before had
sorrowed over the summary executions of the insurgents was now like a
madman, ready to rend and tear, yelling, shouting, his eyes starting
from their sockets.

Jean burst like a hurricane into the Rue du Bac with the few men of his
squad. At first he could distinguish no one; he thought the barricade
had been abandoned. Then, looking more closely, he perceived a communard
extended on the ground between two sand bags; he stirred, he brought his
piece to the shoulder, was about to discharge it down the Rue du Bac.
And impelled by blind fate, Jean rushed upon the man and thrust his
bayonet through him, nailing him to the barricade.

Maurice had not had time to turn. He gave a cry and raised his head. The
blinding light of the burning buildings fell full on their faces.

"O Jean, dear old boy, is it you?"

To die, that was what he wished, what he had been longing for. But to
die by his brother's hand, ah! the cup was too bitter; the thought of
death no longer smiled on him.

"Is it you, Jean, old friend?"

Jean, sobered by the terrible shock, looked at him with wild eyes. They
were alone; the other soldiers had gone in pursuit of the fugitives.
About them the conflagrations roared and crackled and blazed up higher
than before; great sheets of white flame poured from the windows, while
from within came the crash of falling ceilings. And Jean cast himself on
the ground at Maurice's side, sobbing, feeling him, trying to raise him
to see if he might not yet be saved.

"My boy, oh! my poor, poor boy!"

VIII.

When at about nine o'clock the train from Sedan, after innumerable
delays along the way, rolled into the Saint-Denis station, the sky to
the south was lit up by a fiery glow as if all Paris was burning. The
light had increased with the growing darkness, and now it filled the
horizon, climbing constantly higher up the heavens and tingeing with
blood-red hues some clouds, that lay off to the eastward in the gloom
which the contrast rendered more opaque than ever.

The travelers alighted, Henriette among the first, alarmed by the glare
they had beheld