She meant only that she had seen their approach from the window; but a dull murmur that at the moment rose on the air outside, and penetrating the walls, grew each instant louder and more sinister, seemed to give another significance to her words. The women listened with white faces, then began to scream afresh. A reckless movement of one of them dashed out the nearer of the two lights. The old man who had admitted me began to whimper. "O _mon Dieu!_" I cried fiercely, "can no one still these cravens?" For the noise almost robbed me of the power of thought, and never had thought been more necessary. "Be still, fools," I continued, "no one will hurt _you_. And do you, Mademoiselle, please to come with me. There is not a moment to be lost. The garden by which I entered----" But she looked at me in such a way that I stopped. "Is it necessary to go?" she said doubtfully. "Is there no other way, Monsieur?" The noise outside was growing louder. "What men have you?" I said. "Here is Gargouf," she answered promptly. "He will tell you." I turned to the staircase and saw the steward's face, at all times harsh and grim, rising out of the well of the stairs. He had a candle in one hand and a pistol in the other; and his features as his eyes met mine wore an expression of dogged anger, the sight of which drew fresh cries from the women. But I rejoiced to see him, for he at least betrayed no signs of flinching. I asked him what men he had. "You see them," he answered drily, betraying no surprise at my presence. "Only these?" "There were three more," he said. "But I found the doors unbarred, and the men gone. I am keeping this," he continued, with a dark glance at his pistol, "for one of them." "Mademoiselle must go!" I said. He shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that maddened me. "How?" he asked. "By the garden door." "They are there. The house is surrounded." I cried out at that in despair; and on the instant, as if to give point to his words, a furious blow fell on the great doors below, and awakening every echo in the house, proclaimed that the moment was come. A second shock followed; then a rain of blows. While the maids shrieked and clung to one another, I looked at Mademoiselle, and she at me. "We must hide you," I muttered. "No," she said. "There must be some place," I said, looking round me desperately, and disregarding her answer. The noise of the blows was deafening. "In the----" "I will not hide, Monsieur," she answered. Her cheeks were white, and her eyes seemed to flicker with each blow. But the maiden who had been dumb before me a few days earlier was gone; in her place I saw Mademoiselle de St. Alais, conscious of a hundred ancestors. "They are our people. I will meet them," she continued, stepping forward bravely, though her lip trembled. "Then if they dare----"