She moved aside to let him enter, and as she did so, the light caught her face. (His glance, quickened by emergency, caught in those muddy eyes a green flash of mingled hate and greed.) “Wait,” he said, and touched her wrist. “Perhaps it is not needed to rouse anyone.” (That covetousness—if he could use it.) “What do you mean?” “It is a simple matter; not official accounts.” He fumbled out a coin or two and pressed them in her hand. The fat face moved into a leer. “Eh, eh, so that’s the story. Want to take her, do you? And poor Mircella will be blamed, maybe sent for instruction. It should be worth more.” (Money again; he experienced a moment of panic.) “I am from the office of account,” he repeated. “I am to take her there to close her reckoning. You will have the perquisite of her possessions.” “He, he, and you the best perquisite. It should be worth more.” “Sh, someone will hear us.” He found another pair of coins. “This is all—if not, give back the rest and call your mattern.” He turned; she clutched his arm, grumbling in her throat (and he could see she did not believe him in the least, but would be satisfied if given a story to tell). “Come. Come.” Another stair-journey through a silent house, this time upward. The place had the indefinable perfume of many women. The guide shuffled along in a dark almost complete; Rodvard heard the chink of keys, then a tick against the lock and the door opened. “Strike a light.” Rodvard felt a candle pressed into his hand; being forced to give his attention to it, Lalette saw him first when the light flared, he heard her gasp and looked past the little flame to see her standing with disheveled hair, so lovely beyond the imagined picture that he could not resist running across the room to kiss her astonished lips. She must have been sitting fully dressed in the dark. “Rodvard! How did you come here?” The fat woman shuffled in the background, and he: “No matter now, it can wait. We must go quickly.” She stared at him like a sleepwalker. “Where?” “Hurry.” There were no more words between them at this time or place. Lalette turned in the feeble light to make a package, but the fat woman said; “Nah, my perquisite,” so she only snatched a cloak. The beldame addressed Rodvard; “Now you use your knife on the lock to show where it was picked, then leave it. Then they know my story is true, a man was here.” He hacked at the brass plate that held the keyhole for a moment, and fortune favored by letting one of the screws come loose with a snap, and the fat woman clawed his arm to indicate that was enough. She led the way down the stair, Rodvard could see no eyes, and he and Lalette were suddenly out the door. III She turned to face him under the dead tree. “You do not want me any more. How did you find me? Where did you come from?”