She chewed her fingertips, gnawing at the nails already bitten to the quick, her tongue finding a tiny flap of loose skin to work on. She imagined Madame Ariane living under the major’s persecution, as she did under Sabine’s. It would be a different sort of tyranny, using different methods, but the result would be the same. You lived in occupied country. At any time, in any place, the attack could strike. You lived perpetually, wearingly, on the alert for the accusation and the penalty. She, Suzie, had never been able to break free of Sabine’s power, but perhaps Madame Ariane would be able to outwit the major. Madame Ariane, powerful, independent, must be able to throw off his domination. Suzie willed it with all her strength, with the double identification of a fellow victim, of Sabine and of the Nazis.

But Sabine must not know. Whatever the state of war between the major and Madame Ariane, Suzie wanted to protect her from Sabine. She knew that Sabine had a profound sensitivity to atmosphere. The very act of formulating the thought of hiding something from her was enough to rouse Sabine’s awareness. Even though she could not discover the particular incident that Suzie wished to hide, she was able, subliminally, to identify the subject.

That night the heat broke with a thunderstorm, one of the clashing, rainless storms of the region, during which the thunder rolled around the hills and sheets of lightning hung for seconds at a time from the sky. In Madame Ariane’s dressing room where she and Sabine had slept since the Germans’ arrival, Suzie woke at the first growl and lay watching the white flashes at the window. She could hear the wind in the trees behind the tower. A loud clapping sound came from the room next door.

She waited to hear Madame Ariane’s quiet movements in her bedroom, getting up to close the window, or refix the shutter. The noise came again and again.

The bed in the dressing room was boat-shaped, the most beautiful bed she had ever slept in. It was meant for one large person, but she and Sabine were obliged to share it. She slept lightly, without movement, lying along the very edge of the mattress to allow Sabine the maximum space. Her companion was a wild sleeper, thrashing her legs and crying out in her dreams. The worst was when she ground her teeth together, making Suzie shudder. Now Sabine was lying quietly, face down, sprawled over three-quarters of the bed.

Suzie lifted the sheet with infinite precaution and slipped out of the bed, tiptoeing across the wooden floor. The communicating door was unlocked and she pushed it open gently, to see if Madame Ariane was sleeping through the storm. The bed was empty, had not been slept in that night, the linen lying as flat as when Micheline had smoothed it into place that morning. One wing of the casement window had broken loose and was swinging in the wind. She anchored it again to its hook and leaned on the sill to look out at the view, which on this side of the tower overlooked the house and the courtyard. In the quiet and darkness between the rolls of thunder and the flashes of lightning, she saw a red pulse throbbing in the courtyard, then another. She thought they were the glow-worms that she had seen in the garden last summer. She leaned out further and then jumped back as Sabine’s hands fastened on her waist from behind.