Whatever its origin, she took it to bed with her and long after the house slept round her, long after the crowded quarter of the Halles had begun to heave and the Sorbonne to vomit a black-frocked band, long after the tall houses in the gabled streets, from St.Antoine to Montmartre and from St.Denis on the north to St.Jacques on the south, had burst into rows of twinkling lights--nay, long after the Quarter of the Louvre alone remained dark, girdled by this strange midnight brightness--she lay awake.

At length she too slept, and dreamed of home and the wide skies of Poitou, and her castle of Vrillac washed day and night by the Biscay tides..