"Did I not say that this house was safe? Have I not sworn that so long as you are within it no harm should happen to you?"
Here the scene was complicated by the entrance of another person. Thinking, probably, that the soldiers were coming after him, Joseph Picaut appeared on the threshold of the widow's door. The house of his sister-in-law, who was known to be a Blue, may have seemed to him a safe asylum. Perceiving the widow's guests, he started back in surprise.
"Ha! so you have White gentlefolk here, have you? I see now why the soldiers are coming; you have sold your guests."
"Wretch!" cried Marianne, seizing her husband's sabre, which hung over the fireplace, and springing at Joseph, who raised his gun and aimed at her.
Bonneville sprang down the ladder; but the young peasant-woman had already flung herself between the brother and sister, covering the widow with her body.
"Lower your gun!" she cried to the Vendéan, in a tone that seemed not to come from that frail and delicate body, so male and energetic was it. "Lower your gun! in the king's name I command it!"
"Who are you who speak thus to me?" asked Joseph Picaut, always ready to rebel against authority.
"I am she who is expected here,--who commands here."
At these words, said with supreme majesty, Joseph Picaut, speechless, and as if bewildered, dropped his weapon to the ground.
"Now," continued the young woman, "go up in the loft with monsieur."