Her sorrowful silence acknowledged the truth of his words. At length, "But if these folk," she said timidly, "are of so wretched a sort, Charles?" "Wretched they are," he answered, "but their cause is good. Better fall with them than rise by such deeds as have driven them to arms. I tell you that the things I have heard, as I sat over their fires by night in the caves about Bourdeilles where they lie, would arm not men's hands only, but women's! Would spoil your sleep of nights, and strong men's sleep! Poor cottars killed and hamlets burned, in pure sport! Children flung out and women torn from homes, and through a whole country-side corn trampled wantonly, and oxen killed to make a meal for four! But I cannot tell you what they have suffered, for you are a woman and you could not bear it!" Bonne forgot her fears for him. She leant forward--she had gone back to her seat on the stairs--and clenched her small hands. "And M. de Vlaye it is," she cried, "he who has done more than any other to madden them, who now proposes to rise upon their fall? Monsieur de Vlaye it is who, having driven them to this, will now crush them and say he does the King service, and so win pardon for a thousand crimes?" But the light had gone out in Charles's eyes. "Ay, and win it he will. So it will go," he said moodily. "So it will happen! He has seen afar the chance of securing himself, and he will seize it, by doing what, for the time, no other has means to do." "He who kindled the fire will be rewarded for putting it out?" "Just so!" "But can you do nothing against him?" Roger muttered. "We may hold our own for a time, in the caves and hills about Brantome perhaps," the elder brother answered. "But after a while he will starve us out. And in the open such folks as we have, ill-armed, ill-found, with scarce a leader older than myself, will melt before his pikes like smoke before the wind!" Roger's eyes glistened. "Not if I were with you," he muttered. "There should be one blow struck before he rode over us! But"--he let his chin sink on his breast--"what am I?" "Brave enough, I know," Charles answered, putting his hand affectionately on the lad's shoulder. "Braver than I am, perhaps. But it is not the end, be the end what it may, good lad, that weighs me down and makes me coward. It is the misery of seeing all go wrong hour by hour and day by day! Of seeing the cause with which I must now sink or swim mishandled! Of striving to put sense and discipline into the folk who are either clowns, unteachable by aught but force, or a rabble of worthless vagrants drawn to us as to any other cause that promises safety from the gallows. And yet, if I were older and had seen war and handled men, I feel that even of this stuff I could make a thing should frighten Vlaye. Ay, and for a time I thought I could," he continued gloomily. "But they would not be driven, and short of hanging half a dozen, which I dare not attempt, I must be naught!"