se, my son," said the old priest without looking up from his paper.
"Early as it is you must be stirring if you would be clear of Dunwich by
daybreak and keep a whole skin. I have set a taper in my sleeping-closet
yonder, and there you'll find water to wash with and a stool to kneel on
for your prayers, neither of which neglect, since you have blood on your
hands and great need for Heaven's help."

So Hugh arose, yawning, and stumbled heavily to the chamber, for he was
still faint with sleep, which would not leave him till he had plunged
his head into a basin of icy water. This done, he knelt and prayed as he
had been bidden, with a very earnest heart, and afterward came back to
the guest-hall.

Seeing folk gathered there as he entered he laid hand on sword, not his
own with which he had killed his cousin, but a long and knightly weapon
that Sir Andrew had given him with the armour. Drawing it, he advanced
boldly, for he thought that his enemies might have found him out, and
that his best safety lay in courage. Thus he appeared in the ring of the
lamplight clad in gleaming steel and with raised weapon.

"What, son!" asked a testy voice which he knew for that of his own
father, "is it not enough to have killed your cousin? Would you fall
on your brothers and me also, that you come at us clad in mail and with
bare steel in hand?"

Hearing these words Hugh sheathed the sword, and, advancing toward the
speaker, a handsome, portly man, who wore a merchant's robe lined with
rich fur, sank to his knee before him.

"Your pardon, my father," he said. "Sir Andrew here will have told you
the story; also that I am not to blame for this blood-shedding."

"I think you need to ask it," replied Master de Cressi, "and if you and
that lean henchman of yours are not to blame, then say who is?"

Now a tall, slim figure glided up to them. It was Eve, clothed in her
own robe again, and beautiful as ever after her short rest.

"Sir, I am to blame," she said in her full, low voice. "My need was sore
and I sent a messenger to Hugh bidding him meet me in the Blythburgh
Marsh. There we were set on, and there John Clavering, my brother, smote
Hugh in the face. Would you, a de Cressi, have had him take the blow and
yield me up to the Frenchman?"

"By God and my forefathers, no! least of all from one of your
stock--saving your presence," answered the merchant. "In truth, had he
done so, dead or living from that day I would have called him n