Then she had a
sudden impulse.
"And do you ever think of what may come upon you?" she asked. "Do you
ever think of the end?
"Aye," he said.
"And what do you think the end will be?"
She saw him raise his eyes to her an instant.
"I think," he said, "that I shall die for my faith some day."
That same strange shiver that passed over her at her mother's bedside,
passed over her again, as if material things grew thin about her. There
was a tone in his voice that made it absolutely clear to her that he was
not speaking of a fancy, but of some certain knowledge that he had. Yet
she dared not ask him, and she was a middle-aged woman before the news
came to her of his death upon the rack.
IV
It was a sleepy-eyed young man that came into the kitchen early next
morning, where the ladies and the maids were hard at work all together
upon the business of baking. The baking was a considerable task each
week, for there were not less than twenty mouths, all told, to feed in
the hall day by day, including a widow or two that called each day for
rations; and a great part, therefore, of a mistress's time in such
houses was taken up with such things.
Marjorie turned to him, with her arms floured to the elbow.
"Well?" she said, smiling.
"I have done, mistress. Will it please you to see it before I go and
sleep?"
They had examined the house carefully last night, measuring and sounding
in the deep and thin walls alike, for there was at present no
convenience at all for a hunted man.
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