from her native mountains:

He has gone to the mountains, The far green mountains. (Hear the cattle
lowing as they drive them up the hill!) When he comes down he'll love
me; When he comes down he'll marry me. (But what is this that touches me
with fingers dead and chill?)

Still singing, she carried the jewel-case to her table, and sat down
before it. Then she put a hand to her throat.

The lock had been forced.

A glance about showed her that her code-book was gone. In the tray
above, her jewels remained untouched; her pearl collar, the diamond
knickknacks the Archduchess had given her on successive Christmases,
even a handful of gold coins, all were safe enough. But the code-book
was gone.

Then indeed did the Countess look death in the face and found it
terrible. For a moment she could not so much as stand without support.
It was then that she saw a paper folded under her jewels and took it out
with shaking fingers. In fine, copperplate script she read:

MADAME,--To-night at one o'clock a closed fiacre will await
you in the Street of the Wise Virgins, near the church. You
will go in it, without fail, to wherever it takes you.
(Signed)THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

The Committee of Ten! This thing had happened to her. Then it was true
that the half-mythical Committee of Ten existed, that this terror of
Livonia was a real terror, which had her by the throat. For there was no
escape. None. Now indeed she knew that rumor spoke the truth, and that
the Terrorists were everywhere. In daylight they had entered her room.
They had known of the safe, known of the code. Known how much else?

Wild ideas of flight crossed her mind, to be as instantly abandoned for
their futility. Where could she go that they would not follow her? When
she had reacted from her first shock she fell to pondering the matter,
pro and con. What could they want of her? If she was an enemy to the
country, so were they. But even that led nowhere, for after all, the
Terrorists were not enemies to Livonia. They claimed indeed to be its
friends, to hold in their hands its future and its betterment. Enemies
of the royal house they were, of course.

She was nearly distracted by that time. She was a brave woman,
physically and mentally of hard fiber, but the very name signed to the
paper set her nerves to twitching. It was the Committee of Ten which had
murdered Prince Hubert and his young wife; the Committee of Ten wh