.

The groups remained standing there, however. In order to put an end to
this, some police-officers in civilian dress seized the most riotous of
them in a brutal fashion, and carried them off to the guard-house.
Frederick, in spite of his indignation, remained silent; he might have
been arrested along with the others, and he would have missed Madame
Arnoux.

A little while afterwards the helmets of the Municipal Guards appeared.
They kept striking about them with the flat side of their sabres. A
horse fell down. The people made a rush forward to save him, and as soon
as the rider was in the saddle, they all ran away.

Then there was a great silence. The thin rain, which had moistened the
asphalt, was no longer falling. Clouds floated past, gently swept on by
the west wind.

Frederick began running through the Rue Tronchet, looking before him and
behind him.

At length it struck two o'clock.

"Ha! now is the time!" said he to himself. "She is leaving her house;
she is approaching," and a minute after, "she would have had time to be
here."

Up to three he tried to keep quiet. "No, she is not going to be late--a
little patience!"

And for want of something to do he examined the most interesting shops
that he passed--a bookseller's, a saddler's and a mourning warehouse.
Soon he knew the names of the different books, the various kinds of
harness, and every sort of material. The persons who looked after these
establishments, from seeing him continually going backwards and
forwards, were at first surprised, and then alarmed, and they closed up
their shop-fronts.

No doubt she had met with some impediment, and for that reason she must
be enduring pain on account of it. But what delight would be afforded in
a very short time! For she would come--that was certain. "She has given
me her promise!" In the meantime an intolerable feeling of anxiety was
gradually seizing hold of him. Impelled by an absurd idea, he returned
to his hotel, as if he expected to find her there. At the same moment,
she might have reached the street in which their meeting was to take
place. He rushed out. Was there no one? And he resumed his tramp up and
down the footpath.

He stared at the gaps in the pavement, the mouths of the gutters, the
candelabra, and the numbers above the doors. The most trifling objects
became for him companions, or rather, ironical spectators, and the
regular fronts of the houses seemed to him to have a pitiless aspe