Place and sweeping his plumed hat to a lady smiling down on him from a balcony. The officer could not hear the unhappy girl calling to him. He was too far off.

But the poor deaf ringer heard. A profound sigh heaved his breast. He turned away. His heart was swelling with the tears he drove back; his two clenched fists went up convulsively to his head, and when he drew them away they each held a handful of his rough red hair.

The Egyptian paid no heed to him.

“Damnation!”he muttered, as he ground his teeth, “so that is how a man should be — he need only have a handsome outside!”

Meanwhile she was still on her knees crying out in terrible agitation:

“Oh! — now he is dismounting from his horse — he is going into that house — Phœbus! He does not hear me. Phœbus! The shameless woman, to be speaking to him at the same time that I do! Phœbus! Phœbus!”

The deaf man watched her. He understood her gestures, and the poor bell–ringer’s eye filled with tears, though he let not one of them fall. Presently he pulled her gently by the hem of her sleeve. She turned round. He had assumed an untroubled mien.

“Shall I go and fetch him?”he asked quietly.

She gave a cry of joy. “Oh, go! Go quickly — run! hasten! it is that officer! that officer — bring him to me, and I will love thee!”

She clasped his knees. He could not refrain from shaking his head mournfully.

“I will bring him to you,”he said in a low voice; then, turning away his head, he strode to the stair–case, suffocating with sobs.

By the time he reached the Place there was nothing to be seen but the horse fastened to the door of the Gondelaurier’s house. The captain had gone in.

Quasimodo looked up at the roof of the Cathedral. Esmeralda was still in the same place, in the same attitude. He made her a melancholy sign of the head, then established himself with his back against one of the posts of the porch, determined to wait until the captain came out.

It was, at the Logis Gondelaurier, one of those gala days which precede a wedding. Quasimodo saw many people go in, but nobody come away. From time to time he looked up at the church roof. The gipsy never stirred from her post any more than he. A groom came, untied the horse and led him away to the stables of the mansion.

The whole day passed thus. Quasimodo leaning against the post, Esmeralda on the roof, Phœbus, no doubt, at the feet of Fleur-de-Lys.

Night fell at last — a dark night without a moon. Quasimodo might strain his gaze towards Esmeralda, she faded into a mere glimmer of light in the gloaming — then nothing; all was swallowed up in darkness.

He now saw the whole façade of the Gondelaurier mansion illuminated from top to bottom. He saw one after another the windows in the Place lit up, one after another also he saw the lights disappear from them; for he remained the whole evening at his post. The officer never came out. When the last wayfarer had gone home, when every window of the other houses was dark, Quasimodo, quite alone, remained lost in the shadows. The Parvis of Notre–Dame was not lighted in those days.