anger lurked there. She longed for morning, for the light; and thought
of Claude and his fate, and wondered why the thought of his danger did
not move her to weeping, as it had moved her a few hours earlier.

In truth she was worn out. The effort to revive her mother had cost her
the last remains of strength. Her feet as she descended the stairs were
of lead, the brazen notes of the alarm-bell hummed in her ears. When she
reached the living-room she set the lamp on one of the tables and sat
down wearily, with her eyes on the cold, empty hearth and on the settle
where she had sat with his arms about her. And now, if ever, she must
weep; but she could not.

The lamp burned low, and cast smoky shadows on the ceiling and the
walls. The shuttered windows showed their dead faces. The cheerful soul
of the room had passed from it with the fire, leaving the shell gloomy,
lifeless, repellent. Anne drowsed a moment in sheer exhaustion, and
would have slept, if the lamp on the point of expiring had not emitted
a sound and roused her. She rose reluctantly, dragged herself to the
great cupboard under the stairs, and, having lighted a rushlight at the
dying flame, put out the lamp and refilled it.

She was about to re-light it, and had taken the rushlight in her hand
for the purpose, when she heard through the shuttered windows and the
barred door a growing clamour; the tramp of heavy feet, the hum of many
voices, the buzz of a crowd that, almost as soon as she awoke to its
near presence, came to a stand before the house. The tumult of voices
raised all at once in different keys did not entirely drown the clash of
arms; and while she stood, sullenly regarding the door, and resigned to
the inevitable, whatever it might be, thin shafts of light pierced the
shutters and stabbed the gloom about her.

With that a hail-storm of knocks fell on the door and on the shutters. A
dozen voices cried, "Open! Open!" The jangle of a halberd as its bearer
let the butt drop heavily on the stone steps added force to the summons.

Anne's first impulse was to retreat upstairs, and leave them to do their
worst. Her next--she was in a state of collapse in which resistance
seemed useless--was to open. She moved to the door, and with cold hands
removed the huge bars and let down the chain. It was only when she had
done so much, when it remained only to unlock, that she wavered; that
she trembled to think on what the crowd might be bent, and what might be