After all, none of them knew exactly what they had been waiting for.

There was a rumor that a woman had fainted or had met with an accident.

Certainly she had been carried into the shop and into the inner room, the door of which was still closed.

A few passers-by had gathered together and stared and waited for a few minutes, but had finally lost interest and melted away.

A human thoroughfare, this, indeed, one of the pulses of the great city beating time night and day to the tragedies of life.