He closed these in haste and found, when he turned from the task and looked for her--a small round hole in each shutter made things dimly visible--that she was gone to soothe her mother.
He could not but love her the more for it.

He could not but respect her the more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial.

But when the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teems with pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanes and the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember--then to be alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self.
For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battle still wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemed a prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this.

Thump! Thump! They were stoning the shutters.

Let them! He placed the settle across the hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might have betrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes.