All at once, however, possessed by a fresh idea, she left the window, saying:
It had just occurred to her that the manufacturer also had spent the night at Bazeilles, and that if he had returned he would be able to give her some news of her husband. She swiftly went downstairs again, and this time, instead of passing out by way of the Rue des Voyards, she crossed the narrow yard of the house, and followed the passage leading to the large factory buildings, whose monumental façade overlooked the Rue Maqua. As she reached the old central garden, now paved with stones, and retaining only a lawn girt round with superb trees, gigantic elms of the last century, she was greatly surprised at sight of a sentry mounting guard in front of the closed doors of a coach-house. Then she suddenly remembered why he was there. She had learnt the day before that the treasury chest of the Seventh Army Corps had been deposited there, and she experienced a singular feeling at thought of all that gold, millions of francs, so it was said, hidden away in that coach-house, whilst they were already killing one another over yonder.
However, at the moment when she was beginning to ascend the servant's staircase, on her way to Gilberte's room, she met with a fresh surprise, indeed so unforeseen an encounter that she hastily stepped down the three stairs which she had already climbed, doubting whether she would still dare to go and knock at the door above. A soldier, a captain, had just tripped past her as lightly as a fleeting apparition, and yet she had had sufficient time to recognise him, having met him at Gilberte's house at Charleville in the days when she--Gilberte--was still Madame Maginot. Henriette took a few steps across the courtyard, and looked up at the two lofty bedroom windows, the shutters of which were still closed. Then, having come to a decision, she climbed the stairs.
A friend since childhood, quite intimate with Gilberte, she occasionally went to chat with her of a morning; and she intended, on reaching the first landing, to knock, as was her wont, at the dressing-room door. But she found that it had been left ajar, and she merely had to push it open and cross the dressing-room to reach the bedchamber, an extremely lofty apartment, from the ceiling of which descended flowing curtains of red velvet, enveloping a large bedstead. All was quiet in this room, the atmosphere of which was saturated with a vague perfume of lilac; there was merely a sound of calm breathing, and even that was so faint as to be scarcely audible.