It was not many seconds before the oaken barrier yielded to the assault of the axes that had levelled the gates of the Santa Maria convent; for this was the same detachment of the rioters, grown like a snowball as it moved, but led still by Red Errico. The yell of triumph which the insensate crew set up as they poured in stopped suddenly, because it was not the object of their fury that they found. Tarsis had vanished. They beheld in his stead a woman young and of great beauty, standing alone--calm, imperious, unafraid. A hush came over those in front as they fell back, every impassioned face turned to hers, and the black smoke of the torches filling the room. At length one of the women spoke. “We don’t want you, signora,” she said. “It’s Tarsis. Where is he?” “I do not know,” Hera answered, and it was the truth, for she had not seen him leave the place at the window where he crouched before the door was assailed; but a general muttering and shaking of heads told her the answer was unsatisfactory. “You ought to know,” one woman said, shrewdly, going a step nearer. “Why don’t you?” “I am not the guardian of Signor Tarsis,” she replied, defiantly, but not wisely; and there was a resentful growl from the mob, which had kept pressing into the library. “Oh, you are not his keeper, eh?” the first questioner snapped back. “You’d better not play grand with us!” another woman warned her, shaking a finger in Hera’s face. “We are the bosses now,” a third announced. “And it will serve you, my fine lady, to keep a civil tongue.” The sentiment was applauded by an outburst of “Bravas!” Some of the invaders had begun to ransack the room in search of Tarsis. They pulled out the drawers of cabinets, flung open the doors beneath the book-shelves, and peered into closets. The next one to speak to Hera was Red Errico, who had pushed his way to the front. “If you are not his keeper, signora,” he said, with mock deference, “perhaps you will condescend to tell us who you are?” “I am his wife,” she answered, and the black looks faded from some of the faces. They knew her by her works among the poor of the Porta Ticinese quarter. One woman who had benefited by her charities began to acclaim her praise. “Donna Hera of the Barbiondi!” she cried. “Evviva! She is a friend of the people!” “Viva Donna Hera!” chimed in others who had tasted of her bounty. Red Errico commanded silence. “Where is your husband, signora?” he asked, his suspicion unallayed; but before she could tell them again that she did not know the answer came from the woman who, above all others in that angry horde, wanted to find the master of the palace. “Here he is!” she exclaimed, her voice weakened with shouting all day, and cracking now in the frenzy of her triumph. “Here he is.”