wear to me by our Saviour and on the welfare of your soul to break with
Hugh de Cressi once and forever? For if so I'll let you free, to leave
me if you will, and dwell where it pleases you."

She opened her lips to answer, but he held up his hand, saying:

"Wait ere you speak, I have not done. If you take my offer I'll not even
press Sir Edmund Acour on you; that matter shall stand the chance of
time and tide. Only while you live you must have no more to do with the
man who slew your brother. Now will you swear?"

"Not I," she answered. "How can I who but a few days ago before God's
altar and His priest vowed myself to this same Hugh de Cressi for all
his life?"

Sir John rose from the stool and walked, or, rather, tottered to the
door.

"Then stay here till you rot," he said quite quietly, "for I'll give
you no burial. As for this Hugh, I would have spared him, but you have
signed his death-warrant."

He was gone. The heavy door shut, the bars clanged into their sockets.
Thus these two parted, for when they met once more no word passed
between them; and although she knew not how these things would end, Eve
felt that parting to be dreadful. Turning her face to the wall, for a
while she wept, then, when the woman Mell came with her bread and water,
wiped away her tears and faced her calmly. After all, she could have
answered no otherwise; her soul was pure of sin, and, for the rest, God
must rule it. At least she would die clean and honest.

That night she was wakened from her sleep by the clatter of horses'
hoofs on the courtyard stones. She could hear no more because a wind
blew that drowned all sound of voices. For a while a wild hope had
filled her that Hugh had come, or perchance Sir Andrew, with the Dunwich
folk, but presently she remembered that this was foolish, since these
would never have been admitted within the moat. So sighing sadly she
turned to rest again, thinking to herself that doubtless her father had
called in some of his vassal tenants from the outlying lands to guard
the manor in case it should be attacked.

Next morning the woman Jane Mell brought her better garments to wear,
of her best indeed, and, though she wondered why they were sent, for the
lack of anything else to do she arrayed herself in them, and braided
her hair with the help of a silver mirror that was among the garments. A
little later this woman appeared again, bearing not bread and water, but
good food and a cup of wine. T