"What is it?" "Oh, aunt! aunt! the soldiers! They are coming up; they surprised and killed the man who was on the watch." "The soldiers?" cried Joseph Picaut, who from his own door heard the cry of his boy. "What can we do?" asked Bonneville. "Wait for them," said the young peasant-woman. "Why not attempt to escape?" "If Courtin, the man who was here just now, sends them or brings them, they have surrounded the house." "Who talks of escaping?" asked the Widow Picaut. "Did I not say that this house was safe? Have I not sworn that so long as you are within it no harm should happen to you?" Here the scene was complicated by the entrance of another person. Thinking, probably, that the soldiers were coming after him, Joseph Picaut appeared on the threshold of the widow's door. The house of his sister-in-law, who was known to be a Blue, may have seemed to him a safe asylum. Perceiving the widow's guests, he started back in surprise. "Ha! so you have White gentlefolk here, have you? I see now why the soldiers are coming; you have sold your guests." "Wretch!" cried Marianne, seizing her husband's sabre, which hung over the fireplace, and springing at Joseph, who raised his gun and aimed at her. Bonneville sprang down the ladder; but the young peasant-woman had already flung herself between the brother and sister, covering the widow with her body. "Lower your gun!" she cried to the Vendéan, in a tone that seemed not to come from that frail and delicate body, so male and energetic was it. "Lower your gun! in the king's name I command it!" "Who are you who speak thus to me?" asked Joseph Picaut, always ready to rebel against authority. "I am she who is expected here,--who commands here." At these words, said with supreme majesty, Joseph Picaut, speechless, and as if bewildered, dropped his weapon to the ground. "Now," continued the young woman, "go up in the loft with monsieur." "But you?" said Bonneville. "I stay here." "But--" "There's no time to argue. Go; go at once!" The two men mounted the ladder, and the trap-door closed behind them. "What are you doing?" the young woman asked with surprise, as the widow began to disarrange the bed on which the body of her husband lay and to drag it from the wall. "I am preparing a hiding-place where no one will seek you." "But I don't mean to hide myself. No one will recognize me in these clothes. I choose to await them as I am." "And I choose that you shall not await them," said the Widow Picaut, in so firm a tone that she silenced her visitor. "You heard what that man said; if you are discovered while in my house it will be thought that I sold you, and I do not choose to run the risk of your being discovered." "You, my enemy?" "Yes, your enemy, who would lie down on this bed and die if she saw you made prisoner."