"Come, my child!" said Master Nathaniel kindly, "there's nothing to cry about. I'm feeling as well as ever I did in my life ... though, by the Harvest of Souls, I can't imagine what can have taken me. I never remember to have swooned before in all my born days." But Hazel would not be comforted: "That it should have happened, here, in my house," she sobbed. "We who have always stood by the laws of hospitality ... and not a young gentleman, either ... oh, dearie me; oh, dearie me!" "What do you blame to yourself, my child?" asked Master Nathaniel. "Your hospitality is in no sense to blame if, owing perhaps to recent fatigues and anxieties, I should have turned faint. No, it is not you that are the bad host, but I that am the bad guest to have given so much trouble." But Hazel's sobs only grew wilder. "I didn't like her bringing in that fire-box--no I didn't! An evil outlandish thing that it is! That it should have happened under my roof! For it is my roof ... and she'll not pass another night under it!" and she sprang to her feet, with clenched fists and blazing eyes. Master Nathaniel was becoming interested. "Are you alluding to your grandfather's widow?" he asked quietly. "Yes, I am!" cried Hazel indignantly. "Oh! she's up to strange tricks, always ... and none of her ways are those of honest farmers--no fennel over our doors, unholy fodder in our granary ... and in her heart, thoughts as unholy. I saw the smile with which she looked at you at dinner." "Are you accusing this woman of actually having made an attempt on my life?" he asked slowly. But Hazel flinched before this point-blank question, and her only answer was to begin again to cry. For a few minutes Master Nathaniel allowed her to do so unmolested, and then he said gently, "I think you have cried enough for tonight, my child. You have been kindness itself, but it is evident that I am not very welcome to your grandfather's widow, so I must not inflict myself longer upon her. But before I leave her roof there is something I want to do, and I shall need your help." Then he told her who he was and how he wanted to prove something against a certain enemy of his, and had come here hoping to find a missing clue. He paused, and looked at her meditatively. "I think I ought to tell you, my child," he went on, "that if I can prove what I want, your grandmother may also be involved. Did you know she had once been tried for the murder of your grandfather?" "Yes," she faltered. "I've heard that there was a trial. But I thought she was proved innocent." "Yes. But there is such a thing as a miscarriage of justice. I believe that your grandfather was murdered, and that my enemy--whose name I don't care to mention till I have more to go upon--had a hand in the matter. And I have a shrewd suspicion that the widow was his accomplice. Under these circumstances, will you still be willing to help me?"