Joan turned upon him heavy-lidded grey orbs. “Why should I marry or be a serving-woman if I wish neither, and can keep myself?—Oh, I like not the way we’ve made this world!” She turned the nest again. “This thing of ill names—Well, ill names do not kill.” Will stood, biting a piece of thorn. “You’d see how it would turn out. No one would believe—” He looked at her with rustic meditativeness. He was slow and country-living; he had no great acquaintance with Alison or Cecily, and it had never occurred to him to mark Master Harry Carthew, where the squire’s brother rode or whom his looks pursued. He had heard of the vintner in the town, and had dimly supposed that Joan would marry him, or maybe the new huntsman or some other fine-feathered person at the castle. But now the plague had swept the town, and the vintner might be of those taken—and here was old Heron gone. He looked at her again, and the hand that held the piece of thorn against his lips began to shake a little. It occurred to him more strongly than it had done before that she was a fair woman—and then, Heron’s cottage. There was a tiny plot of ground, the cow, some poultry. As things went, she had a good dowry. Will the smith’s son might go farther and fare worse. It was not the right time, all Hawthorn being so gloomy and everybody afraid, and his own heart knocking at times against his side with fear. But it wouldn’t hurt just to drop a hint. He moistened his lips. “Joan,” he said; “Joan—” And then, by the perversity of her fortune, Joan herself shook him from this base. She lifted sombre eyes, still turning the little grey nest about in her hands. “Why do you think we had the plague? The minister preached that it was sent against the town for its false doctrine, and we gave thanks that we were not as the town.... And then in a little while it was upon us, and my father, who was a good man, took it and died....”