"Yes, _Herr_," she responded calmly. He was overwhelmed with disgust. "How much was it? Your bribe?" "I don't know, _Herr_." "What! You mean to say you did not stipulate for a certain sum beforehand? "She seemed unable to comprehend. "My father took it all away from me," she answered. "He said it was the wages of sin. It was a whole big handful of gold. I know that." He looked at her in amazement. The fine head, with its wealth of wild hair clustering on her neck, was humbly bent. She appeared not to have the slightest perception of the scorn she had aroused in him; or was she so used to it that she took his contempt as a matter of course? "What were you doing at the Castle when the French were quartered there?" A dark flush suffused her face, neck and bosom. He had struck some chord of memory that awakened in her a spark of shame. "I was helping with the sewing," she stammered. "Why did you come to the Castle?" "My father told me I must. He said I was to go up and ask the _gnäd'ger_ Herr if there was any sewing for me to do. I was to earn my bread somehow, he said." "Oh, indeed!" There was a pause, then he continued: "Go and put on a jacket, Regina." She passed her hand over her bosom and drew her linen garment tighter round her chest, till the string cut into the swelling flesh. "Well, why don't you go?" "I haven't got a jacket." "What! Didn't he clothe you?" "They tore my jacket off my back yesterday." "Who?" A gleam of burning hate flashed from her eyes. "Who? Why, they--the people down there, of course," and she spat in the direction of the village. A feeling of mingled surprise and satisfaction arose within him, for here was a being who could share his hatred; some one whom fate was to associate with him in the coming struggle with the villagers below. "So the people down there are your foes?" he said. She laughed jeeringly. "I should just think they were. They throw stones at me whenever they get the chance--stones as big as this." She joined the hollows of her hands together to show the size. "For how long have they thrown stones at you?" "It must be six years," she said after a moment's calculation. "And how often have they hit you?" "Oh, lots of times. Look here!" and she let the chemise slip down again, to display a scar extending from her shoulder to the root of her bosom, which marked the warm olive skin with a thin line of scarlet. "But now I always take the tub with me." "The tub?" "Yes; the wash-tub. I hold it over my head and neck when they come after me." What a wretched existence was hers--worse than a dog's! "Why have you gone on staying here when they treat you thus?" he asked. "There are other places in the world." She gazed at him in astonishment, as if she did not grasp his meaning. "But I belong here," she said. "You might at least have left the island, and betaken yourself somewhere where your life would not always be in danger." She gave a short laugh.