“Is that what those words say, you?” asked the father, pointing over her shoulder to the paper she held.

“I will translate for you word by word what it says,” replied she, nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had visited her, from flashing fitfully across it.  “Calmez vous, mon amie.  Do not be afraid, my friend.  Il vous aime et il vous cherche.  He loves you and is hunting for you.  Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse.  In four hours you will be happy.  Allons du courage, et surtout soyez maitre de vous meme.  Then take courage and above all preserve your self-possession.  It is the French way of expressing one’s self,” observed she.  “I am glad your friend is disposed to help you,” she continued, giving me back the letter with a smile.  “I am afraid you needed it.”

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks to her and shuffled slowly back.  The fact is I had no words; I was utterly dumbfounded.  Half way through that letter, with whose contents you must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my whole chance of expected reward to have stopped her.  Read out such words as those before these men!  Was she crazy?  But how naturally at the conclusion did she with a word make its language seem consistent with the meaning I had given it.  With a fresh sense of my obligation to her, I hurried to my room, there to count out the minutes of another long hour in anxious expectation of her making that endeavor to communicate with me, which her new hopes and fears must force her to feel almost necessary to her existence.  At length, my confidence in her was rewarded.  Coming out into the hall, she hurried past my door, her finger on her lip.  I immediately rose and stood on the threshold with another paper in my hand, which I had prepared against this opportunity.  As she glided back, I put it in her hand, and warning her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual occupation.  The words I had written were as follows: 

At or as near the time as possible of your brother’s going out, you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with your shawl over your head.  Leave the skirt and shawl behind you, and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs.  You are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid down.  Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no; but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not soften toward it.  Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one inquiring look.  But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward on the floor, and would listen to no appeal.  My resolve had its effect.  Bowing her head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand on her heart, looked up and glided from the room.  I took up that paper and tore it into bits.