mustering.
And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange,
depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary,
the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position.

Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains and
ultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed too
clearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those days
thousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with these two,
under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behind
the gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering,
cast them out--what chance had he of escaping their lot?

Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he who
fights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds it
hard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. And
while Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escape
for her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of saving
all. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lower
themselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might avail
to carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraft
knew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flew
fast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy,
the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate at
Faucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Four
of Geneva.

Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what?
The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involves
himself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. He
felt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter and
benumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a life
without care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this [Greek:
anagke], this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was it
wonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was called
upon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the love
that had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that in
others' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with a
heart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was himself. If
it must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which he
stood, co