THE DAWN.
Anne was but one of some thousands of women who passed through the trial
of that night; who heard the vague sounds of disquiet that roused them
at midnight grow to sharp alarms, and these again--to the dull, pulsing
music of the tocsin--swell to the uproar of a deadly conflict waged by
desperate men in narrow streets. She was but one of thousands who that
night heard fate knocking at their hearts; who praying, sick with fear,
for the return of their men, showed white faces at barred windows, and
by every tossing light that passed along the lane viewed long years of
loneliness or widowhood.
But Anne had this burden also; that she had of herself sent her man into
danger; her man, who, but for her pleading, but for her bidding, might
not have gone. And that thought, thou
