u wish?" she asked in a low voice.

Naturally courageous as she was, she could not have spoken but for the
support of her lover. For the unexpected conjunction of these two, and
their entrance together, smote her with fear. "What is your desire?" she
repeated.

"To see your mother," Basterga answered. "We have no business with
you--at present," he added, after a perceptible pause, and with a slight
emphasis.

She caught her breath. "You want to see my mother?" she faltered.

"I spoke plainly," Basterga replied with sternness. "That was what I
said."

"What do you want with her?"

"That is our affair."

Pale to the lips, she hesitated. Yet, after all, why should they not go
up and see her mother? Things were not to-day as they had been
yesterday: or she had done in vain that which she had done, had sinned
in vain if she had sinned. And that was a thing not to be considered.
If they found her mother as she had left her, if they found the promise
of the morning fulfilled, even their unexpected entrance would do no
harm. Her mother was sane to-day: sane and well as other people, thank
God! It was on that account she had let her heart rise like a bird's to
her lips.

Yet, when she opened her mouth to assent, she found the words with
difficulty. "I do not know what you want," she said faintly. "Still if
you wish to see her you can go up."

"Good!" Basterga replied, and advancing, he opened the staircase door,
then stood aside for the Syndic to ascend first. "Good! The uppermost
floor, Messer Blondel," he continued, holding the door wide. "The stairs
are narrow, but I think I can promise you that at the top you will find
what you want."

He could not divest his tone of the triumph he felt. Slight as the
warning was, it sufficed; while the last word was still on his lips, she
snatched the door from his grasp, closed it and stood panting before it.
What inward monition had spoken to her, what she had seen, what she had
heard, besides that note of triumph in Basterga's voice, matters not.
Her mind was changed.

"No!" she cried. "You do not go up! No!"

"You will not let us see her?" Basterga exclaimed.

"No!" Her breast heaving, she confronted them without fear.

In his surprise at her action the scholar had recoiled a step: he was
fiercely angry. "Come, girl, no nonsense," he said roughly and brutally.
"Make way! Or we shall have a little to say to you of what you did in my
room last night! Do you mark me?" he