He walked along the quay holding his cap in his hand, so that the mild south wind should cool his burning forehead.
How he contrived to kill those long, weary hours he could not afterwards have said.

Once he felt very hungry, and turned almost mechanically into an eating-house, and tried to eat and drink.

But most of the day he wandered through the streets, restlessly, unceasingly, feeling neither chill nor fatigue.

The hour before six o'clock found him on the Quai de l'Horloge in the shadow of the great towers of the Hall of Justice, listening for the clang of the clock that would sound the hour of his deliverance from this agonising torture of suspense.
He found his way to La Tournelle without any hesitation.

There before him was the wooden box, with its guichet open at last, and two stands upon its ledge, on which were placed two huge leather-bound books.
Though Armand was nearly an hour before the appointed time, he saw when he arrived a number of people standing round the guichet.