"Only for revenge, eh? Well, that's not much better. There are a few scruples about thee, my promising lad, which thou wouldst find it necessary to sacrifice in the service. Some soft-hearted mother or sister, I imagine, hath instilled them into thee. Women are always after some mischief. I wish there were none." What did Delecresse know of the momentary pang of sensation which had pricked that hard, seared heart, as for one second memory brought before him the loving face of a little child, over whose fair head for thirty years the churchyard daisies had been blooming? Could he hear the tender, pleading voice of the baby sister, begging dear Piers not to hurt her pet kitten, and she would give him all the sweetmeats Aunt Theffania sent her? Such moments do come to the hardest hearts: and they usually leave them harder. Before Delecresse had found an answer, Sir Piers was himself again. "Thou hast done me a service, boy: and I will take care that thy friend Sir Richard feels the goad as well as my beloved Earl Hubert. Take this piece of gold. Nay, it will not burn thee. 'Tis only earthly metal. Thou wilt not? As thou list. The saints keep thee! Ah,--I forgot! Thou dost not believe in the saints. Bah! no more do I. Only words, lad,--all words. Fare thee well." A few minutes later Delecresse found himself in the street. He was conscious of a very peculiar and highly uncomfortable mixture of feelings, as if one part of his nature were purely angelic, and the other absolutely diabolical. He felt almost as if he had come direct from a personal interview with Satan, and his spirit had been soiled and degraded by the contact. Yet was he any better than Sir Piers, except in lack of experience and opportunity? He leaned over the parapet as he passed, and watched the dark river flowing silently below. "I wish I had not done it!" came in muttered accents from his lips at last. "I do almost, really, wish I had not done it!" And then, as the reader knows, he went home and snubbed his sister. Abraham could get nothing out of his son except some scornful platitudes concerning the "creeping creatures." Not a shred of information would Delecresse give. He was almost rude to his father--a very high crime in the eyes of a Jew: but it was because he was so intensely dissatisfied with himself. "O my son, light of mine eyes, what hast thou done!" mournfully ejaculated old Abraham, as he resigned the attempt to influence or reason with Delecresse. "Done?--made those vile Gentiles wince, I hope!" retorted Licorice. "I hate every man, woman, and child among them. I should like to bake them all in the oven!" And she shut the door of that culinary locality with a bang. Belasez looked up with saddened eyes, and her mother noticed them. "Abraham, son of Ursel," she said that night, when she supposed her daughter to be safely asleep in the inner chamber, "when dost thou mean to have this maiden wedded?"