such an hour, with such sounds of terror filling the night,
with such a glare dancing on the ceiling the first attack had come on,
years before. Then the alarm had been fictitious; to-night the calamity
which the poor woman had imagined, was happening with every circumstance
of peril and alarm.

But Madame Royaume's face, though anxious and serious, retained to an
astonishing extent its sanity. Whether the strange dream which she had
had earlier in the night had prepared her for the state of things to
which she awoke, or the weeks and months which had elapsed since that
old alarm of fire dropped in some inexplicable way from her--and as one
shock had upset, another restored the balance of her mind--certain it is
that Anne, watching her with a painful interest, found her sane. Nor did
Madame Royaume's first words dispel the impression.

"They hold out?" she asked, grasping her daughter's hand and pressing
it. "They hold out?"

"Yes, yes, they hold out," Anne answered, hoping to soothe her. And she
patted the hand that clasped hers. "Have no fear, dear, all will go
well."

"If they have faith and hold out," the aged woman replied, listening to
the strange medley of sounds that rose to them.

"They will, they will," Anne faltered.

"But there is need of every one!"

"They are gone, dear," the girl answered, repressing a sob with
difficulty. "We are alone in the house."

"So it should be," Madame Royaume replied, with sternness. "The man to
the wall, the maid to the pall! It was ever so!"

A low cry burst from Anne's lips. "God forbid!" she wailed. "God forbid!
God have mercy!"

The next moment she could have bitten out her tongue; she knew that such
words and such a cry were of all others the most likely to excite her
patient. But after some obscure fashion their positions seemed this
night to be reversed. It was the mother who in her turn patted her
daughter's hand and sought to soothe her.

"Ay, God forbid," she said softly. "But man must do his part. I mind
when----" She paused. Her eyes travelling round the room, fixed their
gaze on the fireplace. She seemed to be perplexed by something she saw
there, and Anne, still fearing a recurrence of her illness, asked her
hurriedly what it was. "What is it; mother?" she said, leaning over her,
and following the direction of her eyes. "Is it the great pot you are
looking at?"

"Ay," Madame Royaume answered slowly. "How comes it here?"

"There was no one below,"