He was listening. “They come louder!” When he turned his head, she was gone. He saw her brown dress beyond ash stem and bough; now she was deep in fern. He heard her movement, then silence. Still a brown gleam, then that vanished. He stood still, he put hands to face and drew a breath deep and long, then turning he walked rapidly through the forest to his park and his hall. The ruined farm he had already visited. David and Margery had their word. “A serving-wench? Yes, they had had one--Joan. Country from toward Minchester. But she was gone--a se’ennight since.” Somerville had climbed the steps into the loft room. Little was here of Joan or Morgen Fay. But what was, he himself had carried and given to hearth flame. There was one thing, a rose tree in a great crock, and this most carefully he had destroyed. Now, walking fast toward Somerville Hall, he thought, “Have you done wickedly, knight? Why, not so wickedly! A little here, a little there, but no great amount anywhere. Even chance, they may not beat the alders.” He made for himself a picture of London and a little house by the Thames, and Robert Somerville coming to its door, it opening and Ailsa saying, “Why, enter, knight! Flowers and candles and wine--” Morgen Fay crouched among rushes, beneath alders at the edge of a wide brook. It was still and sunny, warm, the water singing drowsily. Two dragon flies in blue mail. The reeds met over her head; it was still as creation dawn. A trout leaped, clouds sailed overhead, blue sky returned, vast, shining, deep as forever. A butterfly and the dragon flies, a small tortoise among reeds, a blackbird in the alders,--stillness, stillness, sun, remoteness. Her muscles relaxed. She thought, “Oh, after all--” Then came the voices. She cowered, lay flat, looking only with terror to see if she made chasm in the reeds. They waved above her. “Oh, perhaps--perhaps--” She prayed. Then she heard the dogs, and they opened cry. She heard a shout, “They’ve got her!” and as they came with great bounds she rose from among the reeds. She would have run, but could not. She raised her voice, “Call off the dogs, and I will come to you!” CHAPTER XVIII Said Master Eustace Bettany to Thomas Bettany, his son: “Idle--thou art idle! Hadst as well be in the new Indies as in my countinghouse! Paper costs--and there thou goest scrawling, scrawling, and never a sum adding nor thinking out market!” He snatched the whitey-brown sheet. “Waste makes want! What are you scribbling there? ‘I saw it in a flash--I saw it in a flash!’ What is it, prithee, that you saw in a flash?” Thomas Bettany rubbed his eyes. “That the world’s a great merchant, father, selling herself to herself and buying herself from herself.” The elder glanced suspiciously. “Will you be turning monk?” “No, though I think there be good monks, good abbots and good priors.” “Of course there be good monks, good abbots and good priors! God forbid that you go believing witch’s story and mad monk’s tale!”