clumsily built staircase, with a rope by way of a hand-rail. At the
door of the lodging in the attic she stopped and tapped mysteriously;

an old man brought forward a chair for her. She dropped into it at
once.

"Hide! hide!" she exclaimed, looking up at him. "Seldom as we leave
the house, everything that we do is known, and every step is

watched----"
"What is it now?" asked another elderly woman, sitting by the fire.

"The man that has been prowling about the house yesterday and to-day,
followed me to-night----"

At those words all three dwellers in the wretched den looked in each
other's faces and did not try to dissimulate the profound dread that

they felt. The old priest was the least overcome, probably because he
ran the greatest danger. If a brave man is weighed down by great

calamities or the yoke of persecution, he begins, as it were, by
making the sacrifice of himself; and thereafter every day of his life

becomes one more victory snatched from fate. But from the way in which
the women looked at him it was easy to see that their intenseanxiety

was on his account.
"Why should our faith in God fail us, my sisters?" he said, in low but

fervent tones. "We sang His praises through the shrieks of murderers
and their victims at the Carmelites. If it was His will that I should

come alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was
reserved for some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring.

God will protect His own; He can do with them according to His will.
It is for you, not for me that we must think."

"No," answered one of the women. "What is our life compared to a
priest's life?"

"Once outside the Abbaye de Chelles, I look upon myself as dead,"
added the nun who had not left the house, while the Sister that had

just returned held out the little box to the priest.
"Here are the wafers . . . but I can hear some one coming up the

stairs."
At this, the three began to listen. The sound ceased.

"Do not be alarmed if somebody tries to come in," said the priest.
"Somebody on whom we could depend was to make all necessary

arrangements for crossing the frontier. He is to come for the letters
that I have written to the Duc de Langeais and the Marquis de

Beauseant, asking them to find some way of taking you out of this
dreadful country, and away from the death or the misery that waits for

you here."
"But are you not going to follow us?" the nuns cried under their

breath, almost despairingly.
"My post is here where the sufferers are," the priest said simply, and

the women said no more, but looked at their guest in reverent
admiration. He turned to the nun with the wafers.

"Sister Marthe," he said, "the messenger will say Fiat Voluntas in
answer to the word Hosanna."

"There is some one on the stairs!" cried the other nun, opening a
hiding-place contrived in the roof.

This time it was easy to hear, amid the deepest silence, a sound
echoing up the staircase; it was a man's tread on the steps covered

with dried lumps of mud. With some difficulty the priest slipped into
a kind of cupboard, and the nun flung some clothes over him.

"You can shut the door, Sister Agathe," he said in a muffled voice.
He was scarcely hidden before three raps sounded on the door. The holy

women looked into each other's eyes for counsel, and dared not say a
single word.

They seemed both to be about sixty years of age. They had lived out of
the world for forty years, and had grown so accustomed to the life of

the convent that they could scarcely imagine any other. To them, as to
plants kept in a hot-house, a change of air meant death. And so, when

the grating was broken down one morning, they knew with a shudder that
they were free. The effect produced by the Revolution upon their

simple souls is easy to imagine; it produced a temporary imbecility
not natural to them. They could not bring the ideas learned in the

convent into harmony with life and its difficulties; they could not
even understand their own position. They were like children whom

mothers have always cared for, deserted by their maternal providence.
And as a child cries, they betook themselves to prayer. Now, in the

presence of imminent danger, they were mute and passive, knowing no
defence save Christian resignation.

The man at the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself,
and the women shuddered. This was the prowler that had been making

inquiries about them for some time past. But they looked at him with
frightened curiosity, much as shy children stare silently at a

stranger; and neither of them moved.
The newcomer was a tall, burly man. Nothing in his behavior, bearing,

or expression suggested malignity as, following the example set by the
nuns, he stood motionless, while his eyes traveled round the room.

Two straw mats laid upon planks did duty as beds. On the one table,
placed in the middle of the room, stood a brass candlestick, several

plates, three knives, and a round loaf. A small fire burned in the
grate. A few bits of wood in a heap in a corner bore further witness

to the poverty of the recluses. You had only to look at the coating of
paint on the walls to discover the bad condition of the roof, and the

ceiling was a perfect network of brown stains made by rain-water. A
relic, saved no doubt from the wreck of the Abbaye de Chelles, stood

like an ornament on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and a
rickety chest of drawers completed the list of the furniture, but a

door beside the fireplace suggested an inner room beyond.
The brief inventory was soon made by the personage introduced into

their midst under such terrible auspices. It was with a compassionate
expression that he turned to the two women; he looked benevolently at

them, and seemed, at least, as much embarrassed as they. But the
strange silence did not last long, for presently the stranger began to

understand. He saw how inexperienced, how helpless (mentally
speaking), the two poor creatures were, and he tried to speak gently.

"I am far from coming as an enemy, citoyennes----" he began. Then he
suddenly broke off and went on, "Sisters, if anything should happen to

you, believe me, I shall have no share in it. I have come to ask a
favor of you."

Still the women were silent.
"If I am annoying you--if--if I am intruding, speak freely, and I will

go; but you must understand that I am entirely at your service; that
if I can do anything for you, you need not fear to make use of me. I,

and I only, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no King now."
There was such a ring of sincerity in the words that Sister Agathe

hastily pointed to a chair as if to bid their guest be seated. Sister
Agathe came of the house of Langeais; her manner seemed to indicate

that once she had been familiar with brilliant scenes, and had
breathed the air of courts. The stranger seemed half pleased, half

distressed when he understood her invitation; he waited to sit down
until the women were seated.

"You are giving shelter to a reverend father who refused to take the
oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"

"HOSANNA!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the stranger,
while she watched him with curious eyes.

"That is not the name, I think," he said.
"But, monsieur," Sister Marthe broke in quickly, "we have no priest

here, and----"
"In that case you should be more careful and on your guard," he

answered gently, stretching out his hand for a breviary that lay on
the table. "I do not think that you know Latin, and----"

He stopped; for, at the sight of the great emotion in the faces of the
two poor nuns, he was afraid that he had gone too far. They were

trembling, and the tears stood in their eyes.
"Do not fear," he said frankly. "I know your names and the name of

your guest. Three days ago I heard of your distress and devotion to
the venerable Abbe de----"

"Hush!" Sister Agathe cried, in the simplicity of her heart, as she
laid her finger on her lips.

"You see, Sisters, that if I had conceived the horrible idea of
betraying you, I could have given you up already, more than once----"

At the words the priest came out of his hiding-place and stood in