"And wherefore not?" said Idonia, with a little hard laugh, "seeing we all do worse than steal here, or if we do not all so, yet do we stand by permissively while others do. Oh, sir," she cried, "I warned you this very morning I was not worth your thought of me, and 'twas truth, or less than the truth, I told, who live amongst evil folk in this place and secret men that whisper as they come and go." She hid her face in her hands so overcome was she by the horror she had waked, and how to comfort her I knew not. "Of what quality be these men you speak of?" I demanded, thinking perhaps they were the thieves beyond the partition wall, who overran into this place too. "I will lay information against them, before the magistrate if you will." Idonia looked at me with a sort of wonder. "But you know them not," said she, "nor where they bide, when they leave us." "Is it not yonder then?" I asked her, and pointed to the little door aloft in the wall. "They--poor folk!" she cried. "A pitiful lean company; would they were no worse I ope the gate to! ... If you had known, when you would have had me admit you, Mr. Denis.... But they be gone for this while ... oh, I fear them!" said she, and fell again to weeping. 'Twas evident she dared not be open with me as touching the business nor estate of those she consorted with, nor, I found, dared give over this life she led amongst them, for all the fear and horror she had of it. So, notwithstanding I returned again and again to the question, she put me off with a manifest dismay. "No, no," she would cry. "Even so much as I have already let fall is haply more than wise for me to speak and you to hear. But now," in conclusion she said, "let us return to your own affairs, in the which it may chance I may assist you." She conceived from the first an infinite admiration of my father, bidding me tell over again the tale of his renouncing all his wealth in order to the ending his brother's supposed confinement, as well as to pay that added debt which I had so foolishly incurred. Idonia drew in her breath sharply when I had done, and then looking me full in the face, said-- "Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will do he will give you thanks for it." 'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the character. "What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails that lay by the wall.