terrible occurrence of the evening, the
meeting with Sidonie; and you can imagine the--"Oh! these women!" and
"Oh! these men?" At last, when they had locked the little garden-door,
Mademoiselle Planus went up to her room, and Sigismond made himself as
comfortable as possible in a small cabinet adjoining.

About midnight the cashier was aroused by his sister calling him in a
terrified whisper:

"Monsieur Planus, my brother?"

"What is it?"

"Did you hear?"

"No. What?"

"Oh! it was awful. Something like a deep sigh, but so loud and so sad! It
came from the room below."

They listened. Without, the rain was falling in torrents, with the dreary
rustling of leaves that makes the country seem so lonely.

"That is only the wind," said Planus.

"I am sure not. Hush! Listen!"

Amid the tumult of the storm, they heard a wailing sound, like a sob, in
which a name was pronounced with difficulty:

"Frantz! Frantz!"

It was terrible and pitiful.

When Christ on the Cross sent up to heaven His despairing cry: 'Eli, eli,
lama sabachthani', they who heard him must have felt the same species of
superstitious terror that suddenly seized upon Mademoiselle Planus.

"I am afraid!" she whispered; "suppose you go and look--"

"No, no, we will let him alone. He is thinking of his brother. Poor
fellow! It's the very thought of all others that will do him the most
good."

And the old cashier went to sleep again.

The next morning he woke as usual when the drums beat the reveille in the
fortifications; for the little family, surrounded by barracks, regulated
its life by the military calls. The sister had already risen and was
feeding the poultry. When she saw Sigismond she came to him in agitation.

"It is very strange," she said, "I hear nothing stirring in Monsieur
Risler's room. But the window is wide open."

Sigismond, greatly surprised, went and knocked at his friend's door.

"Risler! Risler!"

He called in great anxiety:

"Risler, are you there? Are you asleep?"

There was no reply. He opened the door.

The room was cold. It was evident that the damp air had been blowing in
all night through the open window. At the first glance at the bed,
Sigismond thought: "He hasn't been in bed"--for the clothes were
undisturbed and the condition of the room, even in the most trivial
details, revealed an agitated vigil: the still smoking lamp, which he had
neglected to extinguish, the carafe, drained to the last drop by t