"Karen, they burned Lesse this morning."
"Oh!" she gasped.
"Everything at Lesse is in ashes. Some of the men are dead. The survivors are in the woods behind your house waiting for me."
She clung to his arm as they entered the house; Guild picked up one of the lighted candles from the oak table. She took the other and they ascended the stairs together.
"There was sniping," he said. "That always brings punishment to innocent and guilty alike. Lesse is a heap of cinders; they drove the forest and shot the driven game from the steps of the carrefour shrine. Men fell there, too, under their rifles—the herdsman, Schultz, the Yslemont men, the little shepherd lad with both his dogs. When their bearers came our way we fired on them."
"You! Oh, Kervyn! It means death if they find you!"
"I shall not be found." He took her by the hands a moment, smiled at her, then turned swiftly and entered his room holding the candle above his head.
After his door had remained closed for a few moments she knocked.
"Kervyn," she called, "I am frightened and I am going to dress."
"No need of that," came his voice; "I shall be gone in five minutes."