Faint murmurs as from some distant troubled world would steal at times into the silence.

It brought a pang of pity, but it did not drive away the quiet that dwelt there.
Once, someone who must have known the place and had descended the steps softly, sat there among them and talked with them.

Joan could not remember seeing him enter.

Perhaps unknowing, she had fallen to sleep for a few minutes.

Madame Lelanne was seated by the stove, her great coarse hands upon her knees, her patient, dull, slow-moving eyes fixed upon the speaker's face.