"There has been death among your own kin, mistress," said David, "and such death as should make the living fear to bring it to remembrance." "I know it. You ought to fear. Did you slay Nicol, as your father slew Bele Trenby, by water? or did you poison him with drugs? or is your hand red with his life-blood? And now, before the fish have had time to pick his bones, you are wooing his wife." "Will you let Nanna alone? She is ill." "Ill? Babble! Look at her rosy cheeks! She has been listening to your love-words. Who sent you to the _Sea Rover_? What were you doing there? A great plot! A wicked plot against poor Nicol!" "I went to the _Sea Rover_ because--" "Very ready you were to go to Nicol's ship and to do your will there! Oh, it was a great opportunity! None to see! none to tell tales! But I know you! I know you! The black drop of murder is in every Borson's veins." "Mistress, you are an old woman, and you may say your say. If you were a man it would be different. I would cut out your lying tongue, or make it eat its own words." With railing and insolence she defied him to the act, and David stood looking at her with his hands in his pockets. As for Nanna, she had thrown off her cloak and seated herself on Vala's couch. She was trying to control her temper; but the little room was already impregnated with Matilda's personality, and Nanna could not escape from those indirect but powerful influences that distil from an actively evil life. "I wish, Matilda Sabiston, that you would leave my house," she said. "I think that you have brought the devil in with you." Then Matilda turned in her chair and looked at Nanna. Her face, handsomely prominent in youth, had become with sin and age like that of a bird of prey; it was all nose and two fierce, gleaming eyes. "Do you talk of the devil?" she screamed. "You, who drove your husband to sin, and sent your baby to hell!" Then Nanna, with a pitiful cry, buried her face in Vala's pillow; and David, full of anger, said: "I will take you from this house, mistress. You were not asked to come here, and you cannot stay here." "I will stay until I have said what you shall listen to. The child of this woman has been taken for your father's sin. The mother will go next. Then _you_ will bite the last morsel of Kol's curse. I am living only to see this." "I fear not the curse of any man," said David, in a passion. "There is no power in any mortal's curse that prayer cannot wither. Keep it to yourself--you, who believe in it. As for me--"