save with his daughter. I must bring both."

"Nay, I want not the girl."

"But I dare not throttle her, for a great lord loves her, who would
find out the deed and avenge it; and if she be left behind, she will
go to the lord, and the lord will discover what thou hast done with
the wizard, and thou wilt hang!"

"Never say 'Hang' to me, Graul: it is ill-mannered and ominous. Who
is the lord?"

"Hastings."

"Pest!--and already he hath been searching for the thing yonder; and I
have brooded over it night and day, like a hen over a chalk egg,--only
that the egg does not snap off the hen's claws, as that diabolism
would fain snap off my digits. But the war will carry Hastings away
in its whirlwind; and, in danger, the duchess is my slave, and will
bear me through all. So, thou mayst bring the girl; and strangle her
not; for no good ever comes of a murder,--unless, indeed, it be
absolutely necessary!"

"I know the men who will help me, bold ribauds, whom I will guerdon
myself; for I want not thy coins, but thy craft. When the curfew has
tolled, and the bat hunts the moth, we will bring thee the quarry--"

Graul turned; but as she gained the door, she stopped, and said
abruptly, throwing back her hood,--