was
gone. She dwelt on these, and the thought of what was coming filled her
with a fearful joy. She thought of them, and took the lamp and passed
into the next room, and, throwing the light on the rough face of
brickwork that closed the great window, she eyed the cracks eagerly, and
scarcely kept her fingers from beginning the work. For she understood
the plot. One man working silently within, in darkness, could demolish
the wall in an hour; then a whistle, rope ladders, a line of men
ascending, and before midnight the house would vomit armed men, the
nearest gate would be seized, the town would lie at the mercy of the
enemy!

Presently she had to go to her daughter, but the current of her thoughts
kept the same course. The girl was sullen, and lay with her face to the
wall, and gave short answers, venting her misery after the common human
fashion on the one who loved her best. The mother bore it, not as before
with the patience that scorned even to upbraid, but grimly, setting down
each peevish word to the score that was so soon to be paid. She lay all
night beside her child, and in the small hours heard her weep and felt
the bed shake with her unhappiness, and carried the score farther; nay,
busied herself with it, so that day and the twittering of sparrows and
the booming of the early guns took her by surprise. Took her by
surprise, but worked no change in her thoughts.

She was so completely under the influence of the idea, that she felt no
fear; the chance of discovery, and the certainty that if discovered she
would be done to death without mercy, did not trouble her in the least.
She went about her ordinary tasks until late in the afternoon; then,
without preface or explanation, she told her daughter that she was going
out to seek a lodging.

The girl was profoundly astonished. "A lodging?" she cried, sitting up.
"For us?"

"Yes," the mother answered coldly. "For whom do you think?"

"And you will leave this house?"

"Yes."

"But when?"

"To-night."

"Leave this house--for a lodging--to-night?" the girl faltered. She
could not believe her ears. "Why? What has happened?"

Then the woman, in the fierceness of her mood, turned her arms against
her child. "Need you ask?" she cried bitterly. "Do you want to go on
living in this house--in this house, which was your father's? To go in
and out at this door, and meet our neighbours and talk with them on
these steps? To wait here--here, where every one knows