ough," he continued, "I am sorry for the Emperor.
Affairs seemed to be going on well; the farmers were getting a good
price for their grain. But surely it was bad judgment on his part to
allow himself to become involved in this business!"

Maurice, who was still in "the blues," spoke regretfully: "Ah, the
Emperor! I always liked him in my heart, in spite of my republican
ideas. Yes, I had it in the blood, on account of my grandfather, I
suppose. And now that that limb is rotten and we shall have to lop it
off, what is going to become of us?"

His eyes began to wander, and his voice and manner evinced such distress
that Jean became alarmed and was about to rise and go to him, when
Henriette came into the room. She had just awakened on hearing the sound
of voices in the room adjoining hers. The pale light of a cloudy morning
now illuminated the apartment.

"You come just in time to give him a scolding," he said, with an
affectation of liveliness. "He is not a good boy this morning."

But the sight of his sister's pale, sad face and the recollection of her
affliction had had a salutary effect on Maurice by determining a sudden
crisis of tenderness. He opened his arms and took her to his bosom, and
when she rested her head upon his shoulder, when he held her locked in
a close embrace, a feeling of great gentleness pervaded him and they
mingled their tears.

"Ah, my poor, poor darling, why have I not more strength and courage
to console you! for my sorrows are as nothing compared with yours. That
good, faithful Weiss, the husband who loved you so fondly! What will
become of you? You have always been the victim; always, and never a
murmur from your lips. Think of the sorrow I have already caused you,
and who can say that I shall not cause you still more in the future!"

She was silencing him, placing her hand upon his mouth, when Delaherche
came into the room, beside himself with indignation. While still on the
terrace he had been seized by one of those uncontrollable nervous fits
of hunger that are aggravated by fatigue, and had descended to the
kitchen in quest of something warm to drink, where he had found, keeping
company with his cook, a relative of hers, a carpenter of Bazeilles,
whom she was in the act of treating to a bowl of hot wine. This person,
who had been one of the last to leave the place while the conflagrations
were at their height, had told him that his dyehouse was utterly
destroyed, nothing left of i