"What is it?" asked Margaret, bending forward in her chair, her rosy cheeks gone pale, while her startled eyes were fixed on the woman's face.
"Are ye whom I think?" the woman asked. "Tell me truly, for it is no idle curiosity on my part. It may be a matter of life or death for two among you, perhaps for all."
"What if we say they are?" asked Master Byrckmann who was near, and when he caught at her hand, he felt that she was trembling.
"Then you must be gone."
"Gone. But why?" asked Tyndale, who, so far, had not spoken.
"I brought you all up here, Master Tyndale, because when I saw you enter the inn—you and this sweet girl—I feared that you were those who are being sought for by Doctor Cochlaeus, who is hoping to carry you back and lodge you in the Inquisition dungeon from which this pretty one escaped."
She paused, but none spoke, for the consternation in every breast robbed them of speech. Had they come so far to be captured when so near to safety! Each longed to know what the danger was which made it necessary, worn out though they were, to go out into the night.
"You wonder at me, I am sure," the woman whispered, her eyes on the door while she was speaking. "I am one of yourselves, though some tell me I am one who worships like Naaman in the house of Rimmon. But that is not what I came to say. I want you to be gone—to find safety if it be possible."
She went to the door, opened it, and went outside; then, having glanced down the passage and the stairs, she came back again.
"I'll say more!" she exclaimed, still with her eyes on the closed door. "There came to the inn this afternoon a Churchman, who said that he was Doctor Cochlaeus, a Deacon of the Church of the Blessed Virgin. We all know him for a notorious heresy hunter. With him were half a score of horse soldiers, every one of whom is lodged in this house, while their horses are in the stables.