and so provoke her to resistance. And, notwithstanding what he
said--that she would do as she was bid--I thought I knew her temper well
enough to prophesy a hitch. For I made sure of one thing, that if she
put her will against the world, the world would never move her.

'Twas past midnight, with Tybee dozing in his chair, when next I heard
some stirrings in the corridor. As before, it was the lifting of the
wooden bar that roused my friendly guard, and when he went to parley at
the door I stood apart and turned my back.

When I looked again my company was come. At the table, busied with a
parchment that might have been a ducal title deed for size, stood
Gilbert Stair and the factor-lawyer, Owen Pengarvin. A little back of
them the good old Father Matthieu had Margery on his arm. And in the
corner Tybee stood to keep the door.

I grouped them all in one swift eye-sweep, and having listed them,
strove to read some lessoning of my part in my dear lady's face. She
gave me nothing of encouragement, nor yet a cue of any kind to lead to
what it was that she would have me say or do. As I had seen it last,
under the light of the flaring torches in the room below, her face was
cold and still; and she was standing motionless beside the priest,
looking straight at me, it seemed, with eyes that saw nothing.

It was the factor-lawyer who broke the silence, saying, with his
predetermined smirk, that the parchment was ready for my signature.
Thinking it well beneath me to measure words with this knavish
pettifogger, I looked beyond him and spoke to his master.

"I would have a word or two in private with your daughter before this