“Well,” Dan said, “it’s war.” He drew the sofa out of its corner, hauled it through the door and into the passage; the cellar doorway was wide enough to admit it. “’Way below,” he called, and moved backward down the damp stairs, dragging the monstrous piece after him. He could feel long-unused muscles trying to rip themselves loose within his shoulders. “’Way,” he gasped … The sofa began to slide; he leaned forward, breaking its descent until he could rest the bottom legs on cellar stones. Then he swung the higher end around.

Bedford Fanning came down slowly, holding at the sides of the stairway for support. “Mother,” he said.

She sobbed, “I feel so kind of sickish—”

Irene had lighted two candles. The gloom was thick—it smelled of potatoes, of long-stored vegetables and wines, and of the cool seepage where lizards crawled. Gretel was squatting on an upended box beside the wall, a round-bellied little woman with padded cheeks which now were crimsoned by excitement and fear. Ach, she kept whispering, good God, Missis Fanning, and rebels come with pistols by them.

“You can be a little more comfortable with the sofa,” Dan said. He looked quickly around the place. “Only two windows, and they’re small and facing the south and east.”

Mrs. Fanning sighed, “Now, father, you lie down and rest.” Dan knew that she was making a most laudable effort to expunge her own dishonest misery, in the face of her husband’s greater need. She took the man’s hands and drew him toward the couch. Her hair was disarranged; long tails of it hung raggedly around her shoulders, and the wire ringlets across her forehead were limp and feeble things. In this mossy gloom, she appeared as an elephantine sorceress. She moaned again, “Yes, Bedford. You lie down—what if you should get another spell—”

Somewhere in the house above sounded a tinkle of breaking glass. A window-pane. Dan went up the stairs to bring cushions and the folded afghan which he had dumped from the sofa when he dragged it out of the sitting room … He turned, his arms loaded, and found Irene standing behind him. “Oh, go down,” he commanded roughly.

Her dry whisper came: “I wish you would stay.”

“With them? I’d go mad. If you were with me, alone—”

She cried his name, softly. “Oh, what is wrong? I have the utmost horror of this thing—a hideous—”

“Yes,” he said, and understanding the truth only as he spoke it for the first time. “These armies have come between us.” The room was breathless with caged summer, now that all the doors and windows had been closed.

She said, “Kiss me goodbye.”