pencil-ray
she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting. She
and those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truth
all regnant. The night-sky lit her reign: like its slow-wheeling
progress, advanced her victory--that onward movement which has been,
and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.

These oil-twinkling streets are very still: I like them for their
lowliness and peace. Homeward-bound burghers pass me now and then, but
these companies are pedestrians, make little noise, and are soon gone.
So well do I love Villette under her present aspect, not willingly
would I re-enter under a roof, but that I am bent on pursuing my
strange adventure to a successful close, and quietly regaining my bed
in the great dormitory, before Madame Beck comes home.

Only one street lies between me and the Rue Fossette; as I enter it,
for the first time, the sound of a carriage tears up the deep peace of
this quarter. It comes this way--comes very fast. How loud sounds its
rattle on the paved path! The street is narrow, and I keep carefully to
the causeway. The carriage thunders past, but what do I see, or fancy I
see, as it rushes by? Surely something white fluttered from that
window--surely a hand waved a handkerchief. Was that signal meant for
me? Am I known? Who could recognise me? That is not M. de
Bassompierre's carriage, nor Mrs. Bretton's; and besides, neither the
Hotel Crecy nor the chateau of La Terrasse lies in that direction.
Well, I have no time for conjecture; I must hurry home.

Gaining the Rue Fossette, reaching the pensionnat, all there was still;
no fiacre had yet arrived with Madame and Desiree. I had left the great
door ajar; should I find it thus? Perhaps the wind or some other
accident may have thrown it to with sufficient force to start the
spring-bolt? In that case, hopeless became admission; my adventure must
issue in catastrophe. I lightly pushed the heavy leaf; would it yield?

Yes. As soundless, as unresisting, as if some propitious genius had
waited on a sesame-charm, in the vestibule within. Entering with bated
breath, quietly making all fast, shoelessly mounting the staircase, I
sought the dormitory, and reached my couch.

* * * * *

Ay! I reached it, and once more drew a free inspiration. The next
moment, I almost shrieked--almost, but not quite, thank Heaven!

Throughout the dormitory, throughout the house, there reigned at this