The long day passed, and every hour was filled with intolerable anxiety for Margaret. She went about the household duties in her home with a heart that was heavy with dread. Every unusual sound had menace in it, for her. Had anyone noticed her they would have wondered why, again and again, she glanced around with startled eyes, while her parted lips went far to betray her distress. Her mother was ill at the time, and again and again Margaret had to go into her room to see to her comfort; but when the girl's hand was on the latch she was careful to throw aside all traces of anxiety, and she went in with a loving smile and a happy-looking face, not wishing to add to her mother's care or to set her thinking that something was wrong. It was a hard task, but her eyes glanced about the room merrily, and she stood at the bedside and chatted pleasantly about little things that made for laughter. But God knew how the poor girl's heart and mind were on the strain, and how, when she heard some measured footsteps in the street, she listened with an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, lest it should be some of the City Guard, coming to the house to search in her father's printing-shop for what some esteemed tenfold worse than treachery. Once, while her mother was asking a question as to some petty household matter, she heard the sound for which she had been listening ever since she had got out of bed in the early morning. She gave an answer which made her mother wonder what she was thinking of, and then hurried to the window and looked into the street below. Her hands clasped in dread, and she almost cried out in her terror, for the thing had come that might well mean ruin. Below were half a score of soldiers of the City Guard, with their halberds gleaming in the watery sun, and the soldiers' eyes were carelessly scanning the houses around them as they stood at ease, or were nodding to some acquaintance who went by. She had seen the men do this many a time, and thought nothing of it; but now she gazed into the street with frightened eyes, and her clasped hands rested on her bosom to still the beating of her heart. "Father!" she murmured noiselessly, for she thought of that picture she had seen in the fire. The officer of the Guard was carelessly looking at some papers in his hand, turning one over the other, as if searching for one in particular. Never had she gazed as she was gazing now, her breath coming and going in gasps. "Why are you breathing in that way, my dear?" the sick woman asked, looking at the girl at the window. "Was I breathing differently than usual, mother?" Margaret asked, turning for a moment, careful to hide the look of dread, and with a forced smile for her mother's sake. "Perhaps I was!" she added lightly. "Ha! there's Targon, the butcher. I must go down and give him an order for to-morrow's dinner." She moved to the bedside, and, bending over to give her mother a kiss, she hurried down the stairs.