Everything
slept in the house; she crept along the corridor, she descended the
staircase.

If only the little sabots are there in their place; that is her great
anxiety. There they are! She slips them on over her satin shoes, she
wraps herself in her great mantle.

She hears that the rain has redoubled in violence. She notices one of
those large umbrellas which the footmen use on the box in wet weather;
she seizes it; she is ready; but when she is ready to go, she sees that
the hall-door is fastened by a great iron bar. She tries to raise it; but
the bolt holds fast, resists all her efforts, and the great clock in the
hall slowly strikes five. He is starting at that moment.

She will see him! she will see him! Her will is excited by these
obstacles. She makes a great effort; the bar yields, slips back in the
groove. But Bettina has made a long scratch on her hand, from which
issues a slender stream of blood. Bettina twists her handkerchief round
her hand, takes her great umbrella, turns the key in the lock; and opens
the door.

At last she is out of the house!

The weather is frightful. The wind and the rain rage together. It takes
five or six minutes to reach the terrace which looks over the road.
Bettina darts forward courageously; her head bent, hidden under her
immense umbrella, she has taken a few steps. All at once, furious, mad,
blinding, a sudden squall bursts upon Bettina, buries her in her mantle,
drives her along, lifts her almost from the ground, turns the umbrella
violently inside out; that is nothing, the disaster is not yet complete.

Bettina has lost one of her little sabots; they were not practical
sabots; they were only pretty little things for fine weather, and at this
moment, when Bettina struggles against the tempest with her blue satin
shoe half buried in the wet gravel, at this moment the wind bears to her
the distant echo of a blast of trumpets. It is the regiment starting!

Bettina makes a desperate effort, abandons her umbrella, finds her little
sabot, fastens it on as well as she can, and starts off running, with a
deluge descending on her head.

At last, she is in the wood, the trees protect her a little. Another
blast, nearer this time. Bettina fancies she hears the rolling of the
gun-carriages. She makes a last effort, there is the terrace, she is
there just in time.

Twenty yards off she perceived the white horses of the trumpeters, and
along the road caught glimpses, vaguely a