She dropped her feet in their worn shoes over the edge of the couch, glanced at him a little wilfully, and then looked away with a rush of color and a tremulous flash of the eyes. “You must try and be patient with me, John.” “It is not a matter of patience, child, but food and good wine.” She put a hand to her throat. “I could not touch anything in this place.” He looked at her with a smile. “Not even if it came in my pocket?” “I will try, John.” “Of course you will. I have work to do here before we start.” He brought out a flask from his pocket, and food that Mrs. Winnie had wrapped up in a clean white napkin. There were some little cakes and some baked meat laid in slices between slips of home-made bread. Barbara looked at them, and then gave him a first sad smile. “It is gross of me, John, but those cakes make me feel hungry.” “The very best confession, dear.” “Will you have some?” He had laid the cloth upon her knees. “No, child, not yet. Can you bear to be left alone awhile?” “I am quite brave now, John. But—” “Well, sweetheart?” “You are not going far?” “No. Only into the tower to get the rope which is not mine to leave. Is there anything that you would wish to take?” She looked down thoughtfully, her dark lashes sweeping her cheeks. “There is a book, John, bound in red leather. I would not leave it here—because—it has helped me—taught me—almost as much as you have done.” XXXVIII John Gore had grim things on his mind that night, and a task before him that he did not wish to come to Barbara’s knowledge. She, poor child, with Mrs. Winnie’s food in her lap—food such as she had not touched for many a day—would have had no heart to eat and drink had she known of the dead on those dark stairs. He wished to spare her the horror of it, for the night had been gross and violent enough, and after all the suffering she had borne he was afraid for her in body and mind. Taking the lantern, he made his way to the tower, closing the door in the passage that led from the kitchen into the ruined hall. Nance Pinniger lay dead upon the stairs, her mouth open and her hands clinched over the place where the sword had entered, and John Gore shuddered as he looked at her, wishing, for the sake of her womanhood, that he had held his hand. He went higher to where the man lay half doubled against the wall, the cloth that covered his face caught between his teeth in the death spasm. The fellow’s bulk seemed a veritable barrier against burial, and John Gore, hardened as he had been to the rough life of the sea, felt a vital horror of this huddled mass that seemed gross and gluttonous even in death. Remembering the open pit, he went and held the lantern over the black hole in the floor, but was still unable to fathom its depth. Here was a ready vault if he could but get the dead to it—a pit that seemed to scoff with open mouth at those whom Fate had cheated.