girls should count for our three captive sons, but
for only two of them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined.
All this time our own crop was perishing through neglect; and so
both the priest and his lordship fined us because their shares
of it were suffering through damage. In the end the fines ate up
our crop--and they took it all; they took it all and made us harvest
it for them, without pay or food, and we starving. Then the worst
came when I, being out of my mind with hunger and loss of my boys,
and grief to see my husband and my little maids in rags and misery
and despair, uttered a deep blasphemy--oh! a thousand of them!
--against the Church and the Church's ways. It was ten days ago.
I had fallen sick with this disease, and it was to the priest
I said the words, for he was come to chide me for lack of due
humility under the chastening hand of God. He carried my trespass
to his betters; I was stubborn; wherefore, presently upon my head
and upon all heads that were dear to me, fell the curse of Rome.

"Since that day we are avoided, shunned with horror. None has
come near this hut to know whether we live or not. The rest of us
were taken down. Then I roused me and got up, as wife and mother
will. It was little they could have eaten in any case; it was
less than little they had to eat. But there was water, and I gave
them that. How they craved it! and how they blessed it! But the
end came yesterday; my strength broke down. Yesterday was the
last time I ever saw my husband and this youngest child alive.
I have lain here all these hours--these ages, ye may say--listening,
listening for any sound up there that--"

She gave a sharp quick glance at her eldest daughter, then cried
out, "Oh, my darling!" and feebly gathered the stiffening form
to her sheltering arms. She had recognized the death-rattle.

CHAPTER XXX

THE TRAGEDY OF THE MANOR-HOUSE

At midnight all was over, and we sat in the presence of four
corpses. We covered them with such rags as we could find, and
started away, fastening the door behind us. Their home must be
these people's grave, for they could not have Christian burial,
or be admitted to consecrated ground. They were as dogs, wild
beasts, lepers, and no soul that valued its hope of eternal life
would throw it away by meddling in any sort with these rebuked and
smitten outcasts.

We had not moved four steps when I caught a sound as of footsteps
upon gravel. My h