"What's the use?" asked the man. "Why blacken our souls further than we must?"
"I'll tell you why," said Martha suddenly. Her whisper cut like a knife. "I'll tell you. Because I fear them. Boys as they are, I fear them! There is a spirit in the eyes of the one who calls himself Ivan that will never die until death blinds them. The little rat! The smart little rat! Calling himself a prince! My, I wish I had had the training of him. Well, whoever he is, he is a Pole, and he will hurt us yet. I feel it. I can feel it, anyway, that harm will come to us through those boys. I warn you, Michael. Patro, I warn you. Once, twice, thrice! You know I never fail."
There was a silence, and Ivan heard Patro catch his breath sharply.
"Well, what would you?" he said finally.
There was a note of triumph in the woman's voice when she spoke.
"Tomorrow night," she said, "we will leave them here, tied to the table. I will leave food on the table for them, just enough for one meal. I have still my little friends in the pill box on the chimney ledge. They are as strong as ever. We will not stay to see whether they eat or not. But I think they will, because I will see to it that they do not taste much food tomorrow. We will lock the door. I will go down to Prague. They say it is but little harmed, and I have a sister there. I will give the smaller child to her. I have a fancy for the light one myself, and they are too unlike to pass off for sisters."
There was a long pause. Then, "Have it as you like," said Michael. "Of course, the boys will bother a good deal, if they go free."
"Certainly they would," said Martha. "We would never know where they would crop up, especially that Ivan one."
"Suppose they do not eat?" asked Patro.
"Eat, eat!" cried Martha. "Well, know you nothing of boys! And they will suspect nothing. You are brutes, brutes, remember, and I so kind and so sorry," she laughed. "They will believe all I say," she added.