particularly violent against the woman,
in whom the excited bourgeois beheld one of those _petroleuses_ who were
the constant bugbear of terror-haunted imaginations, whom they accused
of prowling by night, slinking along the darkened streets past the
dwellings of the wealthy, to throw cans of lighted petroleum into
unprotected cellars. This woman, was the cry, had been found bending
over a coal-hole in the Rue Sainte-Anne. And notwithstanding her
denials, accompanied by tears and supplications, she was hurled,
together with the two men, to the bottom of the ditch in front of an
abandoned barricade, and there, lying in the mud and slime, they were
shot with as little pity as wolves caught in a trap. Some by-passers
stopped and looked indifferently on the scene, among them a lady hanging
on her husband's arm, while a baker's boy, who was carrying home a tart
to someone in the neighborhood, whistled the refrain of a popular air.

As Jean, sick at heart, was hurrying along the street toward the house
in the Rue des Orties, a sudden recollection flashed across his mind.
Was not that Chouteau, the former member of his squad, whom he had
seen, in the blouse of a respectable workman, watching the execution and
testifying his approval of it in a loud-mouthed way? He was a proficient
in his role of bandit, traitor, robber, and assassin! For a moment the
corporal thought he would retrace his steps, denounce him, and send him
to keep company with the other three. Ah, the sadness of the thought;
the guilty ever escaping punishment, parading their unwhipped infamy in
the bright light of day, while the innocent molder in the earth!

Henriette had come out upon the landing at the sound of footsteps coming
up the stairs, where she welcomed Jean with a manner that indicated
great alarm.

"'Sh! he has been extremely violent all day long. The major was here, I
am in despair--"

Bouroche, in fact, had shaken his head ominously, saying he could
promise nothing as yet. Nevertheless the patient might pull through, in
spite of all the evil consequences he feared; he had youth on his side.

"Ah, here you are at last," Maurice said impatiently to Jean, as soon as
he set eyes on him. "I have been waiting for you. What is going on--how
do matters stand?" And supported by the pillows at his back, his face
to the window which he had forced his sister to open for him, he pointed
with his finger to the city, where, on the gathering darkness, the
l