Most of them were overtaken and cut down at once.

Two or three only gained the windows and leaped out.
The instant resistance had ceased, Walter rushed into the drawing room, bidding the men run down and hold the lower windows.

Mrs.Conyers lay in a dead faint on the sofa.

Claire, with a face as pale as death, was standing beside her.
"Walter!" she gasped out; "then we are safe!" She tottered, and would have fallen, had not Walter rushed forward in time to catch her, and place her in a chair: "Don't faint, my dear Claire," he said urgently.

"There is your mother to be looked after, and I must run downstairs, for they are attacking the house." "I won't faint," Claire said, laughing and crying in a manner which frightened Walter more than her fainting would have done.