o the keynote,
and was now rippling down again after its aspirations.

Mary stirred herself.

Ah! now the voice would come in the last chord----when all the music was
first drowned and then ceased, as with crash after crash a great bell,
sonorous and piercing, began to sound from overhead.

CHAPTER X

THE PASSAGE TO THE GARDEN-HOUSE

The two looked at one another with parted lips, but without a word. Then
both rose simultaneously. Then the bell jangled and ceased; and a crowd
of other noises began; there were shouts, tramplings of hoofs in the
court; shrill voices came over the wall; then a scream or two. Mary
sprang to the door and opened it, and stood there listening.

Then from the interior of the house came an indescribable din, tramplings
of feet and shouts of anger; then violent blows on woodwork. It came
nearer in a moment of time, as a tide comes in over flat sands,
remorselessly swift. Then Mary with one movement was inside again, and
had locked the door and drawn the bolt.

"Up there," she said, "it is the only way--they are outside," and she
pointed to the chimney.

Anthony began to remonstrate. It was intolerable, he felt, to climb up
the chimney like a hunted cat, and he began a word or two. But Mary
seized his arm.

"You must not be caught," she said, "there are others"; and there came a
confused battering and trampling outside. She pushed him towards the
chimney. Then decision came to him, and he bent his head and stepped upon
the logs laid upon the ashes, crushing them down.

"Ah! go," said Mary's voice behind him, as the door began to bulge and
creak. There was plainly a tremendous struggle in the little passage
outside.

Anthony threw his hands up and felt a high ledge in the darkness, gripped
it with his hands and made a huge effort combined of a tug and a spring;
his feet rapped sharply for a moment or two on the iron fire-plate; and
then his knee reached the ledge and he was up. He straightened himself on
the ledge, stood upright and looked down; two white hands with rings on
them were lifting the logs and drawing them out from the ashes, shaking
them and replacing them by others from the wood-basket; and all
deliberately, as if laying a fire. Then her voice came up to him, hushed
but distinct.

"Go up quickly. I will feign to be burning papers; there will be smoke,
but no sparks. It is green wood."

Anthony again felt above h