Denise did not know how to answer her, and Marpasse, who was wondrous quick for so big a woman, picked up Denise’s shoes and began to lace them on. “You can come with us as far as you please, my sister,” she said, “and when that body there is asleep some time, you and I can talk together. I am called Marpasse, and I am a very wicked woman, and the good priests curse me, and the bad priests curse me also, but look after me along the road. I am so wicked that I shall certainly be claimed by the devil one day. That is what I am, my dear; but a speckled apple is sometimes sweet under the skin.” She laughed with a kind of fierce bravado, and Denise saw her eyes flash. Isoult broke into a sharp and malicious giggle. “What a good girl you were once, Marpasse!” “I was that,” said the elder woman, looking at Denise’s feet; “men make, men break, and good women prevent the mending. That is what life has been to many.” They set out for Guildford that morning over the blue hills where the gorse blazed, and a few solitary firs rose black against the sky. It was a wild country, and Denise was in wild company had she known it, for little Isoult had had blood on the knife she carried at her girdle, and Marpasse could use a heavy hand. They trudged on over the heathlands, Isoult walking a little ahead, sometimes humming a song, sometimes glancing back sharply and impatiently at Denise. For Marpasse took her time, remembering that Denise was footsore, and she talked to Denise freely, telling her where she was born, and how she had lived, and how she had come to the road. “For we are beggars, my dear,” she said, “though Madame Isoult there has a red dress. We must live, and the good women turn up their noses. But good women often have sharp tongues and sour faces, and the poor men run to the mead butt and to us for comfort.” Marpasse was so frank that she could not but doubt that Denise knew what company she was in. But Denise had taken a liking to Marpasse, and perhaps for that reason she did not read very clearly the truth that the woman put honestly upon her own forehead. It was not surprising that Marpasse should draw her own conclusions, yet she was sorry in her heart for Denise. The day passed, a day of blue haze, of blue distances, and of sunlight shimmering over purple hills. Bees were on the wing, humming here and there amid the gorse. At noon the women shared out the bread, wine, and apples, and Marpasse looked at Denise’s feet. It was near evening when they came over the last hill towards Guildford town, with the west a pyre of peerless gold. Isoult, who walked ahead of the other two, turned suddenly, and waved to them, and pointed towards the sky line. And against the deep blue of the northern sky they saw a line of spears moving, with here and there the black dot of a man’s head. A banner was displayed at the head of the company, but neither Isoult nor Marpasse could decipher it at such a distance.