It was a weary way by which they must go. The man led his companion through the Place du Carousel down to the river, along the endless line of quays by the wash of night-bound waters, over the Isle St-Louis and the street of the two bridges; again, along the gloomy quay of St-Bernard, and so into the dark leafy boulevard that ran southwards to the thieves’ prison. And here, for the first time, a spectral suggestion, an attenuated wind of sounds, began to take shape and body; and here suddenly the girl gave a quick gasp, and jerked to a stop.
“The Salpétrière!” she muttered, clutching her cloak to her throat.
“The Salpétrière, Théroigne.”
She seemed to turn her head and look at him. Then on again she went, and he followed.
The noise increased to their every onward step. Ambiguous sounds resolved themselves into sounds unnamable. Dim light, seen phantomly ahead, flared out in a moment across their path, as if some hellish furnace were refuelling. And then, in an instant—as it were stokers labouring at the mouth of flame—a scurry of fantastic shapes, grotesquely busy about the entrance to a lighted yard, grew into their vision.
Ned turned upon his companion.
“Take my arm,” he said, in a ghastly voice.
She shrank from him.
“Not unless it is thou needst support,” she whispered.
He seized her hand, and reached and drove into the thick of the bestial throng, dragging her after him. A horrible reek seemed to fasten upon his brain.