He began to question her, and this time she told him everything he
asked her, except why she was called Isoult la Desirous. As to this,
she persisted that she could not tell him. He took it good-temperedly,
with a shrug.

"I see something mysterious in all this, child," said he, "and am not
fond of mysteries. But I married thee to draw thee from the hangman
and not thy secrets from thee. Keep thy counsel therefore."

She hung her head.

To all other questions she was as open as he could wish. From her
earliest childhood, he learned, she had known servitude, and been
familiar with scorn and reproach. She had been swineherd, goose-girl,
scare-crow, laundress, scullery-wench, and what not, as her mother
could win for her. She could never better herself, because of the
taint of witchcraft and all the unholiness it brought upon her. As
laundress and scullery-maid she bad been at the Abbey; that had been
her happiest time but for one circumstance, of which she told him
later. Of her father she spoke little, save that he had often beaten
her; of her mother more tenderly--it seemed they loved each other--but
with an air of constraint. Her parents were undoubtedly in ill-savour
throughout the tithing; her father, a rogue who would cut a throat as
easily as a purse, her mother, a wise woman patently in league with
the devil. But she said that, although she could not tell the reason
of it, the Abbot had protected them from judgment many a time--whether
it was her father for breaking the forest-law, deer-stealing, wood-
cutting, or keeping running dogs; or her mother from the hatred and
suspicion of the Malbank people, on account of her sorceries and
enchantments. More especially did the Abbot take notice of her, and,