soned stood the two
sentinels, one beneath the window, the other before the door. There were
icicles upon their beards; they were so shrouded in white they had the
look of snow men built by schoolboys. Their coats of frieze could not
keep out the searching sleet, nor their caps protect their ears from the
intolerable cold. Their hands were so numbed they could not feel the
muskets they held.

The sentinel before the door suffered the most, for whereas his
companion beneath the window had nothing but the house wall before his
eyes, he, on his part, could see on the other side of the alley of trees
the red blinds of "The White Chamois," that inn which the Chevalier de
St. George had mentioned to Charles Wogan. The red blinds shone very
cheery and comfortable upon that stormy night. The sentinel envied the
men gathered in the warmth and light behind them, and cursed his own
miserable lot as heartily as the woman in the porch did hers. The red
blinds made it unendurable. He left his post and joined his companion.

"Rudolf," he said, bawling into his ear, "come with me! Our birds will
not fly away to-night."

The two sentries came to the front of the house and stared at the
red-litten blinds.

"What a night!" cried Rudolf. "Not a citizen would thrust his nose out
of doors."

"Not even the little Chateaudoux's sweetheart," replied the other, with
a grin.

They stared again at the red blinds, and in a lull of the wind a clock
struck nine.

"There is an hour before the magistrate comes," said Rudolf.

"You take that hour," said his companion; "I will have the hour after
the magistrate has gone."

Rudolf ran across to the inn. The sentinel at the door remained behind.
Both men were pleased,--Rudolf because he had his hour immediately, his
fellow-soldier because once the magistrate had come and gone, he would
take as long as he pleased.

Meanwhile the man and woman hand in hand drew nearer to the villa, but
very slowly. For, apart from the weather's hindrances, the woman's anger
had grown. She stopped, she fell down when there was no need to fall,
she wept, she struggled to free her hand, and finally, when they had
taken shelter beneath a portico, she sank down on the stone steps, and
with many oaths and many tears refused to budge a foot. Strangely
enough, it was not so much the inclemency of the night or the danger of
the enterprise which provoked this obstinacy, as some outrage and
dishonour to her figure.

"Yo