shed the candle and stole from
the room, all the pupae of the Death's Head began to squeak in the
darkness.

------------------

The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped
up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so
colourless were hair and eye-lashes.

"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment
as usual in the intervals of her many duties.

"The ink, if you would be so condescending--and a pen," he said, watching
her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.

She fetched both from the cafe.

She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather
sharply that he wished to sleep.

Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do
besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid who required
constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who
cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe
Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of
Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and nobody
now to do it except herself.

Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice.
Always at night the clock-drum was to be wound.

She had no assistant. The town maintained none, and her salary as Mistress
of the Bells of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage anybody to help
her.

So she oiled and wound all the machinery herself, adjusted and cared for
the clock, swept the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after the wires
leading to the tiers of bells overhead.

Then there was work to do in the garden--a few minutes snatched between
other duties. And when night arrived at last she was rather tired--quite
weary on this night in particular, having managed to fulfill all the
duties of the sick youth as well as her own.

The night was warm and fragrant. She sat in the dark at her open window
for a while, looking out into the north where, along the horizon, heat
lightning seemed to play. But it was only the reflected flashes of the
guns. When the wind was right, she could hear them.

She had even managed to write to her lover. Now, seated beside the open
window, she was thinking of him. A dreamy, happy lethargy possessed her;
she was on the first delicate verge of slumber, so close to it that all
earthly sounds were dying out in her ears. Then, suddenly