She was weeping. All it meant, all it might mean, what warranty of powerful friends, what fame beyond the reach of dark stories, or a woman's spite, she could not yet understand, she could not yet appreciate. But something, the city's safety, the city's gratitude, the countenance of these men who came to her door blood-stained, dark with smoke, reeling with fatigue—came that they might thank her mother and do her honour—something of this she did grasp as she wept before them.
She had but one thing to ask, to desire; and in a moment it was given her.
"Nor is that all!" The voice that broke in was harsher and blunter than Baudichon's. "If it be true, as I am told, that a young man of the name of Mercier lives here? He does, does he? Ay, he lives, my girl. He is safe, have no fear. For the matter of that he has nine lives, and"—Captain Blandano continued with an oath—"he has had need of all this night, God forgive me for the word! But, as I said, that is not all. For if there is any one man who has saved Geneva, it is he, the man who let down the portcullis. And if the city does not dower you, my girl——"
"The city shall dower her!" The speaker's voice came from somewhere in the neighbourhood of the doorway, and was something tremulous and uncertain. But what it lacked in strength it made up in haste and eagerness. "The city shall dower her! If not, I will!"
"Good, Messer Blondel, and spoken like you!" Blandano answered heartily. And though one or two of the foremost, on hearing Blondel's voice, looked askance at one another, and here and there a whisper passed of "The Syndic of the guard? How came——" the majority drowned such murmurings under a chorus of applause.
"We are of one mind, I think!" Baudichon said. And with that he turned to the door. "Now, good friends," he continued, "it wants but little of daylight, and some of us were best in our beds. Let us go. That we lie down in peace and honour"—he went on, solemnly raising his hand over the happy weeping girl beside him, as if he blessed her—"that our wives and children lie safe within our walls is due, under God, to this roof. And I call all here to witness that while I live the city of Geneva shall never forget the debt that is due to this house and to the name of Royaume!"
"Ay, ay!" cried the bandy-legged tailor. "I too! The small with the great, the rich with the poor, as we have fought this night!"
"Ay! Ay!"
Some shook her by the hand, and some called Heaven to bless her, and some with tears running down their faces—for no man there was his common everyday self—did naught but look on her with kindness. And so, each having done after his fashion, they trooped out again into the street. A moment later, as the winter sun began to colour the distant snows, and the second Sunday in December of the year 1602 broke on Geneva, the voices of the multitude rose in the one hundred and twenty-fourth psalm; to the solemn thunder of which, poured from thankful hearts, the assembly accompanied Baudichon to his home a little farther down the Corraterie.
Anne was about to close the door and secure it after them—with feelings how different from those with which she had opened that door!—when it resisted her shaking hands. She did not on the instant understand the reason or what was the matter. She pushed more strongly, still it came back on her, it opened widely and more widely. And then one who had heard all, yet had not shown himself, one who had entered with Baudichon's company, but had held himself hidden in the background, pushed in, uninvited.