his daughter was to be admitted, but that if Sir Andrew attempted to
enter he should be driven back by force.

"Will you go in or will you return with me?" asked her companion of Eve.

"God's truth!" she answered, "am I one to run away from my father,
however bad his humour? I'll go in and set my case before him, for
after all he loves me in his own fashion and when he understands will, I
think, relent."

"Your heart is your best guide, daughter, and it would be an ill task
for me to stand between sire and child. Enter then, for I am sure that
the Saints and your own innocence will protect you from all harm. At the
worst you can come or send to me for help."

So they parted, and the bridge having been lowered, Eve walked boldly
to her father's sleeping chamber, where she was told he lay. As she
approached the door she met several of the household leaving it with
scared faces, who scarcely stayed to salute her. Among these were two
servants of her dead brother John, men whom she had never liked, and a
woman, the wife of one of them, whom she liked least of all.

Pushing open the door, which was shut behind her, she advanced toward
Sir John, who was not, as she had thought, in bed, but clad in a furred
robe and standing by the hearth, on which burnt a fire. He watched her
come, but said no word, and the look of him frightened her somewhat.

"Father," she said, "I heard that you were sick and alone----"

"Ay," he broke in, "sick, very sick here," and he laid his hand upon his
heart, "where grief strikes a man. Alone, too, since you and your fellow
have done my only son to death, murdered my guests, and caused them to
depart from so bloody a house."

Now Eve, who had come expecting to find her father at the point of death
and was prepared to plead with him, at these violent words took fire as
was her nature.

"You know well that you speak what is not true," she said. "You and your
Frenchmen strove to burn us out of Middle Marsh; my brother John struck
Hugh de Cressi as though he were a dog and used words toward him that
no knave would bear, let alone one better born than we are. Moreover,
afterward once he spared his life, and Grey Dick, standing alone against
a crowd, did but use his skill to save us. Is it murder, then to protect
our honour and to save ourselves from death? And am I wrong to refuse to
marry a fine French knave when I chance to love an honest man?"

"And, pray, am I your father, girl, that you