He was used from of old to sleeplessness, and as the night wore on his spirits rose to a surprising gaiety and sense of well-being. His garrison was small; but he was master of his own house, at long last, and he had powder and ball on the window-sill in front of him. Whether he lived or died mattered little; but it was of prime importance that he kept this house of Windyhough to the last edge of his strength. Out of doors, Captain Goldstein had given up all thoughts of prosecuting the siege until the dawn. He had detached six men from the ale-barrel to play sentry round the house, and had got the rest into shelter of the outhouses a half-hour later. They were bone-tired, all of them; they were well fed and full of ale; and the beds they made for themselves, of hay and straw, seemed soft as eider-down. Only Goldstein kept awake. He was as weary as any of them; but he had a single purpose, as Rupert had. The Prince was in the house here; dead or alive, he stood for thirty thousand pounds; and Goldstein kept himself awake by picturing the life he would enjoy, out yonder in the Fatherland, when he had claimed his share of the reward. He would squander a thousand of the thirty among his men--more or less, according to their temper--and would afterwards retire from service. For Goldstein, it would seem, did not share the Catholic belief that, till he dies, no man is privileged to retire from soldiery. He kept awake; and by and by he could not rest under shelter of the byre that kept him weather-tight. He went out into the snowy moonlight, intent on seeing that his sentries were leaving no way open for the Prince to escape; and he forgot that there were windows looking out at him. Rupert was standing at his post meanwhile, finding his high dreams useful now that the call to arms had come. He was serving for faith’s sake, and for loyalty’s; and service of that sort is apt to breed an odd content. Across his sense of well-being a gunshot sounded--quick, and loud, and urgent, in this house of silence. He took up a musket, and peered through the snow-storm out of doors, expecting an assault. And again nothing happened, for a little while. And then he heard a woman’s step along the corridor, and Nance’s voice, low and piteous. “Rupert, where are you? I--I need you.” It was then Rupert learned afresh, with a vivid pain that seemed unbearable, how deep his love had gone during the past, silent years. She was in trouble, and needed him. He ran to her side, but could not outstrip the fears that crowded round him. There was the gunshot--and she was hurt; Nance, whom he had longed to keep from the least touch of harm, was hurt. He put his arms about her. His eyes had grown used long since to the dim moonlight of the room, and they sought with feverish concern for traces of her wound. “Where are you hurt, Nance?” he asked. And “Here,” she said, with a wan little smile--“here, right through my heart, Rupert. I--I have killed a man, I think, just now.”