“What is happening? We had an impression that some one was walking outside, in the garden. Yes, when we put our ears to the stone wall built in the embrasure of the window, we thought we heard footsteps. Is it possible? Oh, if it only were! It would mean the struggle, at last. Anything rather than the maddening silence and endless uncertainty!
“That’s it! . . . That’s it! . . . The sound is becoming more distinct. . . . It is a different sound, like that which you make when you dig the ground with a pick-ax. Some one is digging the ground, not in front of the house, but on the right, near the kitchen. . . .”
Patrice redoubled his efforts. Coralie came and helped him. This time he felt that a corner of the veil was being lifted. The writing went on:
“Another hour, with alternate spells of sound and silence: the same sound of digging and the same silence which suggests work that is being continued.
“And then some one entered the hall, one person; he, evidently. We recognized his step. . . . He walks without attempting to deaden it. . . . Then he went to the kitchen, where he worked the same way as before, with a pick-ax, but on the stones this time. We also heard the noise of a pane of glass breaking.
“And now he has gone outside again and there is a new sort of sound, against the house, a sound that seems to travel up the house as though the wretch had to climb to a height in order to carry out his plan. . . .”
Patrice stopped reading and looked at Coralie. Both of them were listening.
“Hark!” he said, in a low voice.
“Yes, yes,” she answered, “I hear. . . . Steps outside the house . . . in the garden. . . .”
They went to one of the windows, where they had left the casement open behind the wall of building-stones, and listened. There was really some one walking; and the knowledge that the enemy was approaching gave them the same sense of relief that their parents had experienced.