How little it is possible to know of the innermost heart of our nearest friends! Belasez went through all her duties that day, without rousing the faintest suspicion in the mind of her mother that she had heard a syllable of the conversation between her parents the night before. Yet she thought of little else. Her household work was finished, and she sat in the deep recess of the window at her embroidery, when Delecresse came and stood beside her. "Belasez, who was that damsel that sat talking with my Lord of Gloucester in the hall when we passed through?" "That was the Damsel Margaret, daughter of Sir Hubert the Earl." "What sort of a maiden is she?" "Very sweet and gentle. I liked her extremely. She was always most kind to me." "Is she attached to my Lord of Gloucester?" It was a new idea to Belasez. "Really, I never thought of that, Cress. But I should not at all wonder if she be. She is constantly talking of him." "Does he care for her?" "I fancy he does, by the way I have seen him look up at her windows." "Yes, I could tell that from his face." The tone of her brother's voice struck Belasez unpleasantly. "Cress! what dost thou mean?" "It is a pity that the innocent need suffer with the guilty," answered Delecresse, contemptuously. "But it mostly turns out so in this world." Belasez grasped her brother's wrists. "Cress, thou hast no thought of revenging thyself on Sir Richard of Gloucester for that boyish trick he once played on thee?" "I'll be even with him, Belasez. No man--least of all a Christian dog-- shall insult me with impunity." "O Cress, Cress! Thou must not do it. Hast thou forgotten that vengeance belongeth to the Holy One, to whom be glory? And for such a mere nothing as that!" "Nothing! Dost thou call it nothing for a son of Abraham to be termed a Jew cur by one of those creeping things of Gentiles? Is not the day at hand when they shall be our ploughmen and vine-dressers?" "Well, then," answered Belasez, assuming a playfulness which she was far from feeling, "when Sir Richard is thy ploughman, thou canst knock his cap off." "Pish! They like high interest, these Christians. I'll let them have it, the other way about." "Cress, what dost thou mean to do?" "I mean that he shall pay me every farthing that he owes," said Delecresse through his clenched teeth. "I cannot have it in gold coins, perhaps. It will suit me as well in drops of blood,--either from his veins or from his heart." "Delecresse, thou _shalt not_ touch the Damsel Margaret, if that be the meaning of those terrible words." "I am not going to touch her," replied Delecresse, scornfully, "even with the tongs he took to my cap. I would not touch one of the vile insects for all the gold at Norwich!" "But what dost thou mean?" "Hold thou thy peace. I was a fool to tell thee." "What art thou going to do?" persisted Belasez. "What thou wilt hear when it is done," said Delecresse, walking away.