Gervase had not forgotten the promise he had made to Dorothy, but in the intervals of his duty had watched the house narrowly, and so far as he was able to discover, Jasper had not attempted to repeat his visits to the enemy. He had begun to think that his thinly-veiled threat had had a salutary effect, and that Jasper knowing himself to have been discovered, would not again rashly put his safety in peril. The task was not one for which he had any great relish, but he had determined, however irksome and unpleasant it might prove, that he would save Dorothy from a public exposure and from the pain that such exposure must necessarily inflict upon her. Had it not been for her he would have taken a summary method with the traitor, but his long vigils were rendered light by the thought that they were undertaken for her sake. While he stood in the dark street in the shadow of the opposite doorway, his heart was stirred when he caught sight of her crossing the window of her chamber, and so long as her light burned there he felt that he was not altogether alone. For matter-of-fact as he was, his love had waked whatever of the pathetic and the heroic there was in his nature; and he felt that this service was a link that bound them more closely together. Macpherson who knew something of his solitary watching, had laughed in his own fashion, and told him that no woman could be won in such a fashion, for while one was sitting sad outside another was fiddling in the chamber. But Gervase had kept his post, though nothing came of it and though he had not spoken to Dorothy for days. To-night he had been ordered with his company to the lines. The enemy who had been waiting in sullen patience for the famine-stricken garrison to surrender, had made some show of movement, and it was believed they meditated another night attack. The guards had therefore been doubled, and precautions were taken to prevent a surprise. Gervase went the more willingly since he believed his services in the city were no longer needed, as a fortnight had elapsed and Jasper had made no sign of renewing his intrigue; and it was a relief once more to find an outlet for his feelings in vigorous action. He felt that he had lost his youth and that he was growing old in witnessing the sights he saw every day--the gaunt hollow-eyed wretches who came tottering from their ruined houses in search of food; the men stricken down with hunger where they stood on duty at the walls; women who had lost their children; children motherless and fatherless, and left without a protector; the want, the sorrow, and the death that increased every day. If they might but have fought out the fight upon the open field, and in one brave struggle have decided their fate, how willingly he would have taken his part! But half the fighting men had fallen since they closed the gates, and of the other half many of them could hardly shoulder their muskets and drag themselves to the walls.