"You know the way?" Dan exclaimed as he caught up with her, and held open the door that led into the old north wing.

"But so well," she replied, catching her breath. "Would to God that I did not!"

"Ah!" he murmured, "I forgot that you have been here before."

They pressed on silently. At the turn of the corridor upon which the Oak Parlour gave, they discerned Tom Pembroke, a weird figure, in the dim light of the tallow dip upon the table, that cast fantastic shadows upon the whitewashed walls.

As he recognized them, he sprang forward in astonishment. "Madame de la Fontaine! Dan! What does this mean?" he cried.

"You know Madame?" Dan replied hastily and in evident confusion. "At great risk she has come to warn us—she is our friend, understand.—She has come to tell us how Bonhomme and his men will attack the Inn."

Tom listened to his explanation with unconcealed dismay. "Good heavens, Dan!" he protested, "You trust this woman? You know she is in league with these ruffians. Do you want us to fall into a trap?"

"No, no, Monsieur Pembroke," interrupted Madame de la Fontaine, "you must listen to me. I understand your fear. But at last you can trust me. I repent that which I have done. Ah, mon Dieu, with what bitterness! And now I desire to do all that is possible to save you. You must trust me."

"I do not—I can not trust you," Tom cried sternly. "Don't go in there, Dan. Don't I beg of you, trust this woman's word. It is a trick."

"Perhaps," said Dan grimly, "but go back. I take the responsibility. I do trust her, I shall trust her—to death. There is no time to lose, man. Go back!"

"What deviltry has bewitched you?" cried Tom passionately. "Already once to-night you have risked our lives by your fool-hardiness,—for the sake of this woman, eh? By gad, man, I begin to see. But I tell you now, I refuse to be a victim to your madness."

"Mais non, Monsieur Pembroke," Claire cried again. "By all that is good and holy, I swear to you, that that which I have said is true. You must go. They will attack the bar and the kitchen. If those places are not defended, there will be danger."

"At any rate," said Dan, "I am going into the Oak Parlour. If you refuse to act with me, barricade the door between the bar and the north wing. If need be, I shall fight alone. Only now we lose time, precious time."

Pembroke looked at him as if he had gone mad, then shrugging his shoulders he turned back into the bar, whistling for Jesse and Ezra as he did so.

For a moment, glancing after Tom's retreating figure, shaken to his soul by conflicting emotions, Dan stood irresolute.

"But come," said Madame de la Fontaine, touching his arm. Again like the weird genius of this strange night she led the way on down the shadowy hall, and paused only when her hand rested upon the knob of the door into the Oak Parlour. "It is here," she said simply.

As Dan reached her side, she opened the door. The light of the candle down the hallway did not penetrate the gloom of the disused room. A musty smell as of cold stagnant air came strong to their nostrils, and Dan felt, as they crossed the threshold together, that he was entering a place where no life had been for a long long time, a place full of dead nameless horrors.

The woman by his side was trembling violently. He put his arm about her to reassure her, and there shot through him a sensation of strange and terrible joy to be with her alone in this darkness and danger. For the moment he was exulting that for her sake he had risked his honour, that for her sake now he was risking life itself. He bent his head to hers.

"No! no!—not here!" she whispered hoarsely, but yet clinging to him with shaking hands. "It is so cold, so dark. I have fear," she murmured.

"It is like a tomb," he said.

"The tomb of my hopes, of my youth," she breathed softly.

"Shall I strike a light?"

"No, no,—no light, I implore you. Ecoute! What is it that I hear?"

"I hear nothing. It is the wind in the Red Oak outside."

"But listen!"

"It is an owl hooting."

Suddenly she drew her hand from his, and he could hear her moving swiftly about. "All is as it used to be?" she asked.

"Precisely," he answered; "nothing has been changed."

"Here is the cabinet," she said, from across the room. "I can feel the lion's head. It is opposite to the window and the moonlight will stream in when the casement is opened, but if I crouch low I shall not be seen. Bien! And you, mon ami? Tell me, is the old escritoire still to the left of the door?" Now she was back at his side once again.

"The escritoire?" he repeated.

"The little table where one writes. Ah! yes, it is here. See, behind this, mon ami, shall you hide yourself. The moonlight will not reach here—and it is so arranged that you will see plainly any one that appears at the window. When the casement is opened, you will shoot, will you not, and shoot to kill?"

"Yes, I will shoot," said Dan, his voice trembling.

"You promise me?" she cried in a tense whisper, as she grasped his arm and held it tight in her grip.

"I tell you, yes."

"You must not fail."

"No. Shall I shoot at any one who opens?"

"Any one?—it will be Bonhomme,—no other."

Suddenly there came, from the front and the rear of the Inn, at the same instant it seemed, the sharp staccato of a fusilade of pistol shots, and the lumbering blows as of beams being thrust at distant doors.

"They are come!" she whispered, "hide." Dan could hear the swish of her garments as she rapidly glided across the room to the old cabinet, then he turned and crouched low behind the writing desk that she had chosen for his place of concealment. He knelt there motionless, a cocked pistol clenched in his right hand. His breath seemed to have stopped, but his heart was pounding as though it must burst through his breast. How could he shoot down in cold blood a fellow man? The horror of it crowded out all other impressions, sensations fears. He could fight, risk his life, but to pull the trigger of that pistol when the casement should open seemed to him an impossibility. He would wait, grapple with him, fight as men should.

Suddenly a ray of moonlight fell across the dark floor. Dan, looking up, seemed frozen by horror. The shutters had opened, the casement swung back noiselessly, and there in the opening, sharply outlined against the moonlight-flooded night, was the great black hulk of Captain Bonhomme.

For a moment he stood there irresolute, listening intently. Dan was fascinated, motionless, held as in a vice by the horror of the thing.

Suddenly Bonhomme moved his head to one side as if to listen more acutely. As he did so, the ray of moonlight fell upon the cabinet, fell upon Claire de la Fontaine, upon something that she held in an outstretched hand that gleamed.

"Nom de Dieu!" There was the flash and crack of a pistol, a sharp cry, and the great figure fell back and sank out of sight.

With that Dan sprang forward, reckless of danger, and ran to the window. He heard without the confused sounds as of persons scurrying to cover, saw their forms dash across the moonlit courtyard, into the shadows of the trees and outhouses. Beneath him on the floor of the gallery was something horrible and still.

Almost instantly Claire de la Fontaine was by his side, and as regardless of danger as he, she was calling sharply, calling men by their names. Her hair had been loosened and fell over her shoulders in black waves, her dark eyes flashed with excitement and passion, and her face, strangely pale, in the silver moonlight, was set in stern harsh lines. Even then this vision of her tragic beauty thrilled the man at her side.

But she was as unconscious of him as she was of her danger. With hand uplifted she called by name the desperados, who had taken shelter in the darkness and to those who now came running from front and rear where their attacks had been unsuccessful.

Appalled, spell-bound by the vision, even as Dan was, they stopped, and stood listening mutely to the torrent of words that she poured forth,—vehement French of which Dan had no understanding.

At last, ending the frightful tension of the scene, two of the men came forward, crept up to the lifeless body of Bonhomme, and grasping it by head and feet, carried it away, across the courtyard, into the darkness of the avenue of maples. One by one, still mysteriously silent, the others of the gang followed, till at length the last one had disappeared into the gloom. Weird silence fell once more upon the Inn.

It was only then that Madame de la Fontaine turned to Dan. "They will come no more," she said in a strained unnatural voice. "We are saved, safe.... I have proved, is it not so?—my honour, my love."

With the words she sank at his feet, just as Tom, candle in hand, appeared in the doorway.