he food she ate with thankfulness, but the
wine she would not drink, because she knew that it was French and had
heard Acour praise it.

The morning wore away to noon, and again the door opened and there stood
before her--Sir Edmund Acour himself, gallantly dressed, as she noticed
vaguely, in close-fitting tunic of velvet, long shoes that turned up
at the toes and a cap in which was set a single nodding plume. She rose
from her stool and set her back against the wall with a prayer to God in
her heart, but no word upon her lips, for she felt that her best refuge
was silence. He drew the cap from his head, and began to speak.

"Lady," he said, "you will wonder to see me here after my letter to you,
bidding you farewell, but you will remember that in this letter I wrote
that Fate might bring us together again, and it has done so through no
fault or wish of mine. The truth is that when I was near to London
I heard that danger awaited me there on account of certain false
accusations, such danger that I must return again to Suffolk and seek
a ship at some eastern port. Well, I came here last night, and learned
that you were back out of sanctuary and also that you had quarrelled
with your father who in his anger had imprisoned you in this poor place.
An ill deed, as I think, but in truth he is so distraught with grief and
racked with sickness that he scarce knows what he does."

Now he paused, but as Eve made no answer went on:

"Pity for your lot, yes, and my love for you that eats my heart out,
caused me to seek your father's leave to visit you and see if perchance
I could not soften your wrath against me."

Again he paused and again there was no answer.

"Moreover," he added, "I have news for you which I fear you will think
sad and which, believe me, I pray you, it pains me to give, though the
man was my rival and my enemy. Hugh de Cressi, to whom you held yourself
affianced, is dead."

She quivered a little at the words, but still made no answer, for her
will was very strong.

"I had the story," he continued, "from two of his own men, whom we met
flying back to Dunwich from London. It seems that messengers from your
father reached the Court of the King before this Hugh, telling him of
the slaying in Blythburgh Marsh. Then came Hugh himself, whereon the
King seized him and his henchman, the archer, and at once put them
on their trial as the murderers of John Clavering, of my knights, and
Thomas of Kessland, which t