“They have brought artillery from Nîmes,” said Rosaline, in a low voice. “Ah, see, Babet, another house has caught! ’Tis the village in the highroad yonder; how it burns! The night is gaping as though we looked into a fiery furnace. Oh, _mon Dieu_, what a fearful sight it is! There! something exploded--see the timbers flying--some one perished when they fell.” She leaned from the window and gazed at the wild night with a throbbing heart. “Can you not see, Babet?” she cried. “I do--they fight there in the firelight--see their black figures--hush! there is a heavy gun.” “My eyes are old,” Babet replied; “to me ’tis the mouth of the infernal regions--no more.” Another pause while madame prayed softly. “How goes it?” she asked again. “I cannot tell--I cannot tell!” cried Rosaline, “but the fire has consumed the houses, I think. It seems to sink now, and I cannot see so well.” Again they watched in silence; but now the firing seemed to grow more distant, and finally they heard it no more, though the flames still made the night as red as blood. An hour passed--two--and they watched, and could see no more, and could only divine the cause of the silence. “Cavalier must have been driven back,” madame said, “else the fighting would have lasted longer. May the _bon Dieu_ guard our poor fellows!” Again there was stillness, and the clock struck four, the clear little bell startling them. Rosaline closed the shutter softly; her face was as white as snow. “’Tis over,” she said; “the flames have died away, darkness is there again, and silence--and death!” CHAPTER XIV “AND ALL FOR LOVE” The day dawned calm, after the night of suspense; the October sky was full of light clouds, and there was a chill in the air, the first suggestion of winter, and the birds twittered in the ivy that clung below Rosaline’s window. The daylight found no roses in her cheeks, but rather a new consciousness of pain in her blue eyes. From an almost childlike innocence and calm, her heart had been awakened; life in its fulness had come upon her, and with it the sense of insecurity. All that she cared for was threatened with terrible dangers; her own every-day life might pass like a dream and she might find herself shut in by grim prison walls. They were not of the “king’s religion,” and imprisonment, banishment, death awaited them.