Jeanne looked on the man before her, and he bent his head to imprint a glowing kiss upon her hand.
"Aunt Marie!" It was Jeanne Lange who spoke, but her voice was no longer that of an irresponsible child; it was firm, steady and hard.

Though she spoke to the old woman, she did not look at her; her luminous brown eyes rested on the bowed head of Armand St.Just.
"Aunt Marie!" she repeated more peremptorily, for the old woman, with her apron over her head, was still moaning, and unconscious of all save an overmastering fear.
"Open, in the name of the people!" came in a loud harsh voice once more from the other side of the front door.
"Aunt Marie, as you value your life and mine, pull yourself together," said Jeanne firmly.
"What shall we do?
Oh! what shall we do ?" moaned Madame Belhomme.

But she had dragged the apron away from her face, and was looking with some puzzlement at meek, gentle little Jeanne, who had suddenly become so strange, so dictatorial, all unlike her habitual somewhat diffident self.
"You need not have the slightest fear, Aunt Marie, if you will only do as I tell you," resumed Jeanne quietly; "if you give way to fear, we are all of us undone.

As you value your life and mine," she now repeated authoritatively, "pull yourself together, and do as I tell you." The girl's firmness, her perfect quietude had the desired effect.

Madame Belhomme, though still shaken up with sobs of terror, made a great effort to master herself; she stood up, smoothed down her apron, passed her hand over her ruffled hair, and said in a quaking voice: "What do you think we had better do ?" "Go quietly to the door and open it." "But--the soldiers--" "If you do not open quietly they will force the door open within the next two minutes," interposed Jeanne calmly.