lenched fists high, high in the
air.

"Help me in, good Jorian," moaned Margaret, turning suddenly calm. "Let
me know the worst; and die."

He supported her trembling limbs into the house.

It seemed unnaturally still; not a sound.

Jorian's own heart beat fast.

A door was before him, unlatched. He pushed it softly with his left
hand, and Margaret and he stood on the threshold.

What they saw there you shall soon know.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

It was supper-time. Eli's family were collected round the board;
Margaret only was missing. To Catherine's surprise, Eli said he would
wait a bit for her.

"Why, I told her you would not wait for the duke."

"She is not the duke; she is a poor, good lass, that hath waited not
minutes, but years, for a graceless son of mine. You can put the meat
on the board all the same; then we can fall to, without farther loss o'
time, when she does come."

The smoking dishes smelt so savoury that Eli gave way. "She will come if
we begin," said he; "they always do, Come, sit ye down, Mistress Joan;
y'are not here for a slave, I trow, but a guest. There, I hear a quick
step off covers, and fall to."

The covers were withdrawn, and the knives brandished.

Then burst into the room, not the expected Margaret, but a Dominican
friar, livid with rage.

He was at the table in a moment, in front of Cornelis and Sybrandt,
threw his tall body over the narrow table, and with two hands hovering
above their shrinking heads, like eagles over a quarry, he cursed
them by name, soul and body, in this world and the next. It was an age
eloquent in curses; and this curse was so full, so minute, so blighting,
blasting, withering, and tremendous, that I am afraid to put all the
words on paper. "Cursed be the lips," he shrieked, "which spoke the
lie that Margaret was dead; may they rot before the grave, and kiss
white-hot iron in hell thereafter; doubly cursed be the hands that
changed those letters, and be they struck off by the hangman's knife,
and handle hell fire for ever; thrice accursed be the cruel hearts
that did conceive that damned lie, to part true love for ever; may they
sicken and wither on earth joyless, loveless, hopeless; and wither to
dust before their time; and burn in eternal fire," He cursed the meat
at their mouths and every atom of their bodies, from their hair to the
soles of their feet. Then turning from the cowering, shuddering pair,
who had almost hid themselves beneath the t