The Leech lifted his hands and closed his eyes in token of gravity. ‘It is the leprosy,’ he said. ‘The leprosy,’ shrieked her mother, and she crossed herself again and again. ‘The leprosy,’ muttered her father. He turned as white as a shroud and reeled against the wall. Alice fell back in a swoon. About noon the Bailiff told the news to Sir Gilbert. The old knight grunted. ‘Before God,’ he said, ‘I have no use for a leper wench; thou canst tear up the parchments and send the girl to the lazar-house.’ Then as the Bailiff left the chamber he called after him, ‘And send up thy daughter Kate to me this evening.’ Sir Gilbert was a grim and mighty man. The parchments were put by and Alice was admitted to the lazar-house over against the forest, and there she abode with those other folk, whom the Lord had afflicted in like manner. Philip of Gisburn had gotten him leave a month since, and had betaken himself to the French wars to fight for the King. V It was the eve of our Lord’s Nativity. The dusk was falling like a grey powder on the wide waste stretches of snow; the distant forests and barren hills were already hidden in an ashen darkness. A single light shone warm and red from the village in the valley. No wind blew; it was very still and bitterly cold. The leper women stood in the highroad, a score of hideous, withered creatures, like phantoms embodied from foulness and decay. They gathered their filthy and scanty rags about them to defend them as they might from the nipping air. Some blew upon their meagre fingers, some feebly struck their bony palms together, some shuffled their swathed feet upon the snow. Their breath froze upon their blue lips. ‘There will be no more travellers this way to-night,’ said one, ‘it grows dark apace.’ ‘God’s malison upon them,’ cried another. ‘It’s precious little, when they do come, that they give us. A cursed day may the Holy Day be to them all; may all whole folk rot piecemeal, as we do,’ and she shook her corroded arms fiercely in the air. ‘Ah,’ quoth Alice, looking toward the village. ‘There were good and kindly folk once. I doubt but they are all gone now.’ One of the women laughed, screaming shrilly. ‘What, thou fool? Didst ever hear of a leper’s friends? Why, the Lord Almighty Himself deserts us and lives with rich men in the warm houses.’ ‘Hush, thou blasphemest,’ cried another. ‘Look, Christ is good, here come other wayfarers.’