Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamity which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstance of peril and alarm.
But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an astonishing extent its sanity.

Whether the strange dream which she had had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as one shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it is that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane.

Nor did Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression.
"They hold out ?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing it.

"They hold out ?" "Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her.

And she patted the hand that clasped hers.