"I will not hide, Monsieur," she answered. Her cheeks were white, and her eyes seemed to flicker with each blow. But the maiden who had been dumb before me a few days earlier was gone; in her place I saw Mademoiselle de St. Alais, conscious of a hundred ancestors. "They are our people. I will meet them," she continued, stepping forward bravely, though her lip trembled. "Then if they dare----"
"They are mad," I answered. "They are mad! Yet it is a chance; and we have few! If I can get to them before they break in, I may do something. One moment, Mademoiselle; screen the light, will you?"
Some one did so, and I turned feverishly and caught hold of the curtain. But Gargouf was before me. He seized my arm, and for the moment checked me.
"What is it? What are you going to do?" he growled.
"Speak to them from the window."
"They will not listen."
"Still I will try. What else is there?"
"Lead and iron," he answered in a tone that made me shiver. "Here are M. le Marquis's sporting guns; they shoot straight. Take one, M. le Vicomte; I will take the other. There are two more, and the men can shoot. We can hold the staircase, at least."
I took one of the guns mechanically, amid a dismal uproar; wailing and the thunder of blows within, outside the savage booing of the crowd. No help could come for another hour; and for a moment in this desperate strait my heart failed me. I wondered at the steward's courage.
"You are not afraid?" I said. I knew how he had trampled on the poor wretches outside; how he had starved them and ground them down, and misused them through long years.