Ah! the wretched fellow! I wasn't in time to set my foot upon the match." With perfect lucidity of mind, such as danger sometimes imparts, Pierre, neither speaking nor losing a moment, remembered that the mansion had a back entrance fronting the Rue Vignon.

He had just realised in what serious peril his brother would be if he were found mixed up in that affair.

And with all speed, when he had led him into the gloom of the Rue Vignon, he tied his handkerchief round his wrist, which he bade him press to his chest, under his coat, as that would conceal it.
But Guillaume, still shivering and haunted by the horror he had witnessed, repeated: "Take me away--to your place at Neuilly--not to my home." "Of course, of course, be easy.

Come, wait here a second, I will stop a cab." In his eagerness to procure a conveyance, Pierre had brought his brother down to the Boulevard again.

But the terrible thunderclap of the explosion had upset the whole neighbourhood, horses were still rearing, and people were running demented, hither and thither.