"Had you come an inch farther it might have been the death of you." A clatter of steps sounded upon the stairs, and the Parisian bent once more to his task, and thrust the table across the open doorway.

He had a moment's respite now, for Fortunio stung--though lightly was not likely to come again until he had others to support him.

And while the others came, while the hum of their voices rose higher, and finally their steps clattered over the bare boards of the guard-room floor, Garnache had caught up and flung a chair under the table to protect him from an attack from below, while he had piled another on top to increase and further strengthen the barricade.
Valerie watched him agonizedly, leaning now against the wall, her hands pressed across her bosom, as if to keep down its tempestuous heaving.
Yet her anguish was tempered by a great wonder and a great admiration of this man who could keep such calm eyes and such smiling lips in the face of the dreadful odds by which he was beset, in the face of the certain death that must ultimately reach him before he was many minutes older.
And in her imagination she conjured up a picture of him lying there torn by their angry swords and drenched in blood, his life gone out of him, his brave spirit, quenched for ever--and all for her unworthy sake.
Because she little, worthless thing that she was--would not marry as they listed, this fine, chivalrous soul was to be driven from its stalwart body.
An agony of grief took her now, and she fell once more to those awful sobs that awhile ago had shaken her.

She had refused to marry Marius that Florimond's life should be spared, knowing that before Marius could reach him she herself would have warned her betrothed.

Yet even had that circumstance not existed, she was sure that still she would have refused to do the will of Marius.