her."

"Oh, she has! she has!" cried Dorcas, fired with sudden
illumination of mind about many things that perplexed her before.
"Her heart is just breaking for him!

"Prithee, good madam, let me go and call her. They say that she is
of little use in the house now, being weak and weeping, and too sad
at heart to work as heretofore. They can well spare her on such an
errand, and methinks it will save her life as well as his. Let me
but go and tell her the news."

"Go, child, go. Lovers be the biggest fools in all this world of
fools! And if the women be the bigger fools, 'tis but because they
were meant to be fitting companions for the men!

"Go to, child!--bring her here, and let us see what she says to
this mad errand of this mad boy.

"And you, young sir, whilst your sister is gone, tell me all you
saw and heard in the pest house! Marry, I like your spirit in going
thither! It is the one place I long to see myself; only I am too
old to go gadding hither and thither after fine sights!"

Joseph was quite willing to indulge the old lady's morbid curiosity
as to the sights he had seen yesterday and today, as he had
journeyed back into the city in the guise of a market lad. The
things were terrible enough to satisfy even Lady Scrope, who seemed
to rejoice in an uncanny fashion over the awful devastation going
on all round.

"I'm not a saint myself," she said with unwonted gravity, "and I
never set up for one, but many has been the time when I have warned
those about me that God would not stand aside for ever looking on
at these abominations. The means were ready to His hand, and He has
taken them and used them as a scourge. And He will scourge this
wicked city yet again, if men will not amend their evil practices."

Next minute Gertrude and Dorcas came running in together, and
Gertrude almost flung herself into Joseph's arms in her eager
gratitude to him for his news, and her desire to hear everything he
could tell her.

Such a clamour of voices then arose as fairly drowned any remark
that Lady Scrope tried from time to time to throw in. Her old face
took a suddenly softened look as she watched the little scene, and
heard the words that passed amongst the young people. Presently she
went tapping away on her high-heeled shoes, and was absent for some
ten or fifteen minutes. When she came back she held in her hands a
small iron-bound box, which seemed to be very heavy for its size.

"Well," she asked in her cle