“These should last until morning,” he said when he had examined the candles, “and by that time we will be far away and people from the next house will surely come to find you. Will they not?” he repeated when she failed to answer. His face was so full of unhappy anxiety that, angry and frightened as she was, Clotilde could not refuse to give him a little comfort. “Yes, I think they will,” she said stiffly and relapsed once more into silence. He piled high the logs and faggots on the hearth so that the fire blazed up into abundant light and warmth. She could not help noticing what a really fine face he had as it showed so clearly in the red glow when he stooped to blow the bellows. He looked about to see if there was aught else that he could do for her comfort and seemed disappointed to find there was nothing. For Clotilde, suddenly remembering the Puritan weaver who had bound his enemy to the armchair and then sat singing at the loom the whole night through, had decided that his example was a worthy one and had climbed up to the bench again and sat throwing her shuttle and singing her song as though the young officer were a hundred miles away. She seemed not to see him as he tried the back door, examined the barred windows and finally, taking up his cloak, turned to go. She did not even look round, although she knew that he hesitated, and then that he paused with his hand on the latch to speak again. “I am so sorry, little Mademoiselle,” he said simply. She made no answer, nor even ceased her singing, but flung the shuttle swiftly as he opened the door and went out into the rising storm. Quick as she was, the sound of her swinging heddle did not come in time to drown the grating noise of the key as it turned in the lock. For some moments after he was gone she tried to work steadily, then suddenly dropped her shuttle in a tangle of threads, leaned her head against the heavy frame of the loom and burst into bitter tears. She heard as she sat there, the sound of feet tramping past on the creaking snow, a dozen, a score, fifty, a hundred perhaps or many more. The sound came back to her on the gusts of the rising wind. On this wild night the expedition had a good chance of skirting Hopewell unnoticed and accomplishing its errand undisturbed.