e have enough to do to protect ourselves," cried Portail,
brusquely.

"The more need of me," was the careless answer.

The watch were now but a few houses away, and the stranger seemed
determined. He could scarcely be kept out without a disturbance. With an
angry oath Felix Portail held the door for him to enter; and closed it
softly behind him. Then for a minute or so the three stood silent in the
darkness of the damp-smelling passage, while with a murmur of voices and
clash of weapons, and a ruddy glimmer piercing crack and keyhole, the
guard swept by.

"Have you a light?" Felix murmured, as the noise began to die away.

"In the back room," replied the young man who had admitted them. He
seemed to be a clerk or confidential servant. "But your sister," he
continued, "is distraught. She has sat at the window all day as you see
her now--sometimes looking at _it_. Oh, Felix," in a voice shaken by
tears, "this has been a dreadful day for this house!"

The young Portail assented by a groan. "And Susanne?" he asked.

"Is with Mistress Marie, terrified almost to death, poor child. She has
been crouching all day beside her, hiding her face in her gown. But
where were you?"

"At the Sorbonne," Felix replied, in a whisper.

"Ah!" the other exclaimed, something of hidden meaning in his tone. "I
would not tell her that, if I were you. I feared it was so. But let us
go upstairs."

They went up; the stranger following, with more than one stumble by the
way. At the head of the staircase the clerk opened a door and preceded
them into a low-roofed panelled room, plainly but solidly furnished, and
lighted by a small hanging lamp of silver. A round oak table on six
curiously turned legs stood in the middle, and on it some food was laid.
A high-backed chair, before which a sheep-skin rug was spread, and two
or three stools, made up, with a great oak chest, the furniture of the
room.

The stranger turned from scrutinizing his surroundings, and stood at
gaze. Another door had opened silently; he saw framed in the doorway and
relieved by the lamplight against the darkness of the outer room the
face and figure of a tall girl; doubtless the one whom he had seen at
the window. A moment she stood pointing at them with her hand, her face
white--and whiter in seeming by reason of the black hair which fell
round it; her eyes were dilated, the neckband of her dark red gown was
torn open that she might have air. "A Provencal!" the intrude