. At last the feeling of suspense became so acute that she
felt she could not endure it longer; she _must_ know; every nerve in her
body was quivering with the ungovernable desire, so she threw a shawl
over her shoulders and left the house in quest of news.

When she had descended and was in the street Henriette hesitated a brief
moment, for the little light that was in the east had not yet crept
downward along the weather-blackened house-fronts to the roadway, and
in the old city, shrouded in opaque fog, the darkness still reigned
impenetrable. In the tap-room of a low pot-house in the Rue au Beurre,
dimly lighted by a tallow candle, she saw two drunken Turcos and
a woman. It was not until she turned into the Rue Maqua that she
encountered any signs of life: soldiers slinking furtively along the
sidewalk and hugging the walls, deserters probably, on the lookout for
a place in which to hide; a stalwart trooper with despatches, searching
for his captain and knocking thunderously at every door; a group of fat
burghers, trembling with fear lest they had tarried there too long,
and preparing to crowd themselves into one small carriole if so be they
might yet reach Bouillon, in Belgium, whither half the population of
Sedan had emigrated within the last two days. She instinctively
turned her steps toward the Sous-Prefecture, where she might depend on
receiving information, and her desire to avoid meeting acquaintances
determined her to take a short cut through lanes and by-ways. On
reaching the Rue du Four and the Rue des Laboureurs, however, she found
an obstacle in her way; the place had been pre-empted by the ordnance
department, and guns, caissons, forges were there in interminable array,
having apparently been parked away in that remote corner the day before
and then forgotten there. There was not so much as a sentry to guard
them. It sent a chill to her heart to see all that artillery lying there
silent and ineffective, sleeping its neglected sleep in the concealment
of those deserted alleys. She was compelled to retrace her steps,
therefore, which she did by passing through the Place du College to the
Grande-Rue, where in front of the Hotel de l'Europe she saw a group
of orderlies holding the chargers of some general officers, whose
high-pitched voices were audible from the brilliantly lighted dining
room. On the Place du Rivage and the Place Turenne the crowd was even
greater still, composed of anxious groups of citize