nd darkening the room; so that she had much ado, gripping
finger-nails into palms, to keep her feet and let herself from fainting.
"I see what it is. You would fain play Providence," he continued--"that
is it, is it? You would play Providence? Then come! Come then, and see
what kind of Providence it is you have played. We will see if you are
right or I am right! And if she be well, or if she be ill!" And again he
moved towards the staircase.

But she stood obstinately between him and the door. "No," she said. "You
do not go up!" She was resolute. The fear that as she listened to his
gibing tones had driven the colour from her face, had hardened it too.
For, if he were right? If for that fear there were foundation? If that
which the Syndic had led her to give and that which she had given,
proved--though for a few hours it had seemed to impart marvellous
vigour--useless or worse than useless? Then the need to keep these men
from her mother was the greater, the more desperate. How they could be
kept, for how long it was possible to keep them, she did not pause to
consider, any more than the she-wolf that crouches, snarling, between
her whelps and the hunt, counts odds. It was enough for her that if they
were right the worst had come, and naught lay between her mother's
weakness and their cruel eyes and judgments but her own feeble strength.

Or no! she was wrong in that; she had forgotten! As she spoke, and as
Basterga with a scowl repeated the order to stand aside, Claude put her
gently but irresistibly by, and took her place. The young man's eyes
were bright, his colour high. "You will not go up!" he said, a mocking
note of challenge, replying to Basterga's tone, in his voice. "You will
not go up."

"Fool! Will you prevent us?"

"You will not go up! No!"

In the very act of falling on the lad, Basterga recoiled. Claude had not
been idle while the others disputed. He had gone to the corner for his
sword, and it was the glittering point, suddenly whipped out and
flickered before his eyes that gave the scholar pause, and made him leap
back. "Pollux!" he cried, "are you mad? Put down! Put down! Do you see
the Syndic? Do you know," he continued, stamping his foot, "that it is
penal to draw in Geneva?"

"I know that you are not going upstairs!" Claude answered gently. He was
radiant. He would not have exchanged his position for a crown. She was
looking, and he was going to fight.

"You fool," Basterga returned, "we hav