which she had kindled still lived--how could it be otherwise in presence
of her youth and gentleness? "If you'll take my advice," he continued
roughly, "you'll not show yourself in the streets unless you wish to be
mishandled, my girl. It will be time enough when the time comes. Even
now, if you were to leave your old witch of a mother and get good
protection, there is no knowing but you might be got clear! You are a
fair bit of red and white," with a grin. "And it is not far to Savoy!
Will you come if I risk it?"

A gesture, half refusal, half loathing, answered him.

"Oh, very well!" he said. The short-lived fit of pity passed from him;
he scowled. "You'll think differently when they have the handling of
you. I'm glad to be going, for where there's one fire there are apt to
be more; and I am a Christian, no matter who's not! Let who will burn,
I'll not!"

He picked up one bundle and, carrying it out, raised his voice. A man,
who had shrunk, it seemed, from entering the house, showed his face in
the light which streamed from the door. To this fellow he gave the
bundle, and shouldering the other, he went heavily out, leaving the door
wide open behind him.

Claude strode to it and closed it; but not so quickly that he had not a
glimpse of three or four pairs of eyes staring in out of the darkness;
eyes so curious, so fearful, so quickly and noiselessly withdrawn--for
even while he looked, they were gone--that he went back to the hearth
with a shiver of apprehension.

Fortunately, she had not seen them. She stood where he had left her, in
the same attitude of amazement into which Grio's accusation had cast
her. As she met his gaze--then, at last, she melted. The lamplight
showed her eyes brimming over with tears; her lips quivered, her breast
heaved under the storm of resentment.

"How dare they say it?" she cried. "How dare they? That I would harm a
child? A child?" And, unable to go on, she held out protesting hands to
him. "And my mother? My mother, who never injured any one or harmed a
hair of any one's head! That she--that they should say that of her! That
they should set that to her! But I will go this instant," impetuously,
"to the child's mother. She will hear me. She will know and believe me.
A mother? Yes, I will go to her!"

"Not now," he said. "Not now, Anne!"

"Yes, now," she persisted, deaf to his voice. She snatched up her hood
from the ground on which it had fallen, and began to put it on.

He