no light, into which
Desiree and her father went at times and stood hand-in-hand without
speaking.

They dined in silence, while Lisa hurried about her duties, oppressed by
a sense of unknown fear. After dinner they went to the drawing-room as
usual. It had been a dull day, with great clouds creeping up from the
West. The evening fell early, and the lamps were already alight. Desiree
looked to the wicks with the eye of experience when she entered the
room. Then she went to the window. Lisa did not always draw the curtains
effectually. She glanced down into the street, and turned suddenly on
her heel, facing her father.

"They are there," she said. For she had seen shadowy forms lurking
beneath the trees of the Frauengasse. The street was ill-lighted, but
she knew the shadows of the trees.

"How many?" asked Sebastian, in a dull voice.

She glanced at him quickly--at his still, frozen face and quiescent
hands. He was not going to rise to the occasion, as he sometimes did
even from his deepest apathy. She must do alone anything that was to be
accomplished to-night.

The house, like many in the Frauengasse, had been built by a careful
Hanseatic merchant, whose warehouse was his own cellar half sunk beneath
the level of the street. The door of the warehouse was immediately under
the front door, down a few steps below the street, while a few more
steps, broad and footworn, led up to the stone veranda and the level of
the lower dwelling-rooms. A guard placed in the street could thus watch
both doors without moving.

There was a third door, giving exit from the little room where Barlasch
slept to the small yard where he had placed those trunks which were made
in France.

Desiree had no time to think. She came of a race of women of a brighter
intelligence than any women in the world. She took her father by the
arm and hastened downstairs. Barlasch was at his post within the kitchen
door. His eyes shone suddenly as he saw her face. It was said of Papa
Barlasch that he was a gay man in battle, laughing and making a hundred
jests, but at other times lugubrious. Desiree saw him smile for the
first time, in the dim light of the passage.

"They are there in the street," he said; "I have seen them. I thought
you would come to Barlasch. They all do--the women. In here. Leave him
to me. When they ring the bell, receive them yourself--with smiles. They
are only men. Let them search the house if they want to. Tell them he
has g