The three blows were scarcely struck, when the inside blind was opened and a light appeared through the panes of the outside
shutter.
I stepped in quickly to close the
shutter on the land side.
"Dark as it is, sooner or later these ladies of yours will feel tempted to open that
shutter. Tell them I don't want the light of the candle to betray my headquarters to the German scouts.
I couldn't hardly hang on to the
shutters, I was so weak.
On the table stood a dark-lantern with the
shutter half open, throwing a brilliant beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar.
The flapping-to of the
shutter would naturally have been attributed to the wind.
The party without, whoever it was, could have stood close to the
shutter without hearing anything spoken; and, seeing the light through the chinks and finding all so quiet, might have been persuaded that only one person was there.
"My brother!" with a voice so full of anguish that the young man opposite closed the
shutter.
The clergyman's
shutters fitted well, and the clergyman's curtains were closely drawn.
Up here also the
shutters were tightly closed, the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least, by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.
As soon as he opened the
shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst into the room.
"I must work the garden--I must work the garden," I said to myself, five minutes later, as I waited, upstairs, in the long, dusky sala, where the bare scagliola floor gleamed vaguely in a chink of the closed
shutters. The place was impressive but it looked cold and cautious.