music
drooping from its rest; here again chairs drawn cosily together.

Wherever I looked were evidences of arrested life, of action suddenly
stayed; in one bedroom a trunk open, with a pile of articles beside
it in the act of being packed; in another, a great bed, its sheets
and blankets tossed askew by hands wild with haste; while in a room
lined with bookcases a deep armchair was drawn up to the hearth,
with a small table whereon stood a decanter and a half-emptied glass,
and an open book whose damp leaves stirred in the wind, now and then,
as if touched by phantom fingers. Indeed, more than once I marvelled
to see how, amid the awful wreckage of broken floors and tumbled
ceilings, delicate vases and chinaware had miraculously escaped
destruction. Upon one cracked wall a large mirror reflected the ruin
of a massive carved sideboard, while in another house, hard by, a
magnificent ivory and ebony crucifix yet hung above an awful twisted
thing that had been a brass bedstead.

Here and there, on either side this narrow street, ugly gaps showed
where houses had once stood, comfortable homes, now only unsightly
heaps of rubbish, a confusion of broken beams and rafters, amid which
divers familiar objects obtruded themselves, broken chairs and
tables, a grandfather clock, and a shattered piano whose melody was
silenced for ever.

Through all these gloomy relics of a vanished people I went
slow-footed and heedless of direction, until by chance I came out
into the wide Place and saw before me all that remained of the
stately building which for centuries had been the Hotel de Ville, now
nothing but a crumbling ruin of noble arch and massive tower; even
so, in shattered facade and mullioned window one might yet see
something of that beauty which had made it famous.

Oblivious of driving rain I stood bethinking me of this ancient city:
how in the dark ages it had endured the horrors of battle and siege,
had fronted the catapults of Rome, heard the fierce shouts of
barbarian assailants, known the merciless savagery of religious wars,
and remained a city still only for the cultured barbarian of to-day
to make of it a desolation.

Very full of thought I turned away, but, as I crossed the desolate
square, I was aroused by a voice that hailed me, seemingly from
beneath my feet, a voice that echoed eerily in that silent Place.
Glancing about I beheld a beshawled head that rose above the littered
pavement, and, as I stared, the h