is horse! He is about to
enter that house!--Phoebus!--He does not hear me! Phoebus!--How wicked
that woman is to speak to him at the same time with me! Phoebus!
Phoebus!"

The deaf man gazed at her. He understood this pantomime. The poor
bellringer's eye filled with tears, but he let none fall. All at once he
pulled her gently by the border of her sleeve. She turned round. He had
assumed a tranquil air; he said to her,--

"Would you like to have me bring him to you?"

She uttered a cry of joy.

"Oh! go! hasten! run! quick! that captain! that captain! bring him to
me! I will love you for it!"

She clasped his knees. He could not refrain from shaking his head sadly.

"I will bring him to you," he said, in a weak voice. Then he turned his
head and plunged down the staircase with great strides, stifling with
sobs.

When he reached the Place, he no longer saw anything except the handsome
horse hitched at the door of the Gondelaurier house; the captain had
just entered there.

He raised his eyes to the roof of the church. La Esmeralda was there
in the same spot, in the same attitude. He made her a sad sign with his
head; then he planted his back against one of the stone posts of the
Gondelaurier porch, determined to wait until the captain should come
forth.

In the Gondelaurier house it was one of those gala days which precede
a wedding. Quasimodo beheld many people enter, but no one come out. He
cast a glance towards the roof from time to time; the gypsy did not stir
any more than himself. A groom came and unhitched the horse and led it
to the stable of the house.

The entire day passed thus, Quasimodo at his post, la Esmeralda on the
roof, Phoebus, no doubt, at the feet of Fleur-de-Lys.

At length night came, a moonless night, a dark night. Quasimodo
fixed his gaze in vain upon la Esmeralda; soon she was no more than
a whiteness amid the twilight; then nothing. All was effaced, all was
black.

Quasimodo beheld the front windows from top to bottom of the
Gondelaurier mansion illuminated; he saw the other casements in the
Place lighted one by one, he also saw them extinguished to the very
last, for he remained the whole evening at his post. The officer did not
come forth. When the last passers-by had returned home, when the windows
of all the other houses were extinguished, Quasimodo was left entirely
alone, entirely in the dark. There were at that time no lamps in the
square before Notre-Dame.

Meanwhile,