“Some men are too good for this world. They are so much in love with the next world——” He laughed discordantly. “That they should be kicked into it! By my bones, there’s truth in that! It had entered my head, dame. And after all it is but doing a saint a service to help him to a halo.” “Tsst—you are too noisy! Have a care.” They drew closer together on the bench till their heads were nearly touching. “Kate is not about?” “She’ll come back singing a litany. We shall hear her.” Yet the girl was nearer than either of them dreamed. She had come wandering silently along the path soon after Geraint had entered the garden, and their voices had warned her. She was standing on the other side of the hedge within two yards of the bench, her hands clenched, her face white and sharp. She could hear all that they said to each other, and it was sufficient to make her wise as to what was in Geraint’s heart. She realized how his brethren at Paradise hated Martin, and how they wished him out of the way. Kate heard Geraint stirring at last. There were sounds from the other side of the hedge, sounds that made her wince. She crept away, step by step, till a turn of the path hid her from view. The gate shut with a clatter. She heard the monk give a great yawn, and then his heavy steps dying away beyond the orchard. Kate stood very close to the hedge and shivered. Life had so changed for her; she was horrified at things that she had hardly understood before; men seemed contemptible creatures. She was thinking of what she had overheard, and of the treachery that threatened Martin Valliant. Kate had kept her promise, and the very keeping of it had strengthened her heart; but that night she was persuaded to break it, nor could her conscience find fault with her. There would be a moon in an hour. She crept around to the stable that stood some way from the house, put a halter on the old gray donkey, and got the beast out with scarcely a sound. He was as stubborn as any ass could be in most people’s hands, but he had a liking for humoring Kate. She led him down the orchard, through the slip gate into the dame’s meadow, and so away over the open country to the bridge at the mill. No one saw her cross the river, though the miller nudged his wife when he heard the donkey’s hoofs on the timber of the bridge. “Now who would you guess that to be?” The good wife ran to the window, but saw nothing, since the moon was not up. “An ass, by the sound.” “Two of them, more likely. And supposing it were Kate Succory, where would she be going?” “It is best to mind one’s business, John, when we live at the prior’s mill.” “Remember it, dame, by all means,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “there is not an honest man among them now that Martin Valliant is away on the moor.” His wife clapped her hands. “Maybe that ass travels as far as the moor.” “Get you to bed. A woman’s tongue stirs up too much mire.”