"He saith so."
"Doth he often trouble you thus?"
"I fear him," she said so low I could scarce hear her.
"But your father?" said I, "or your brothers? Have you none to protect you?"
"My father was slain in a sea-battle long since," she told me, "when he went in the Three Half Moons with others that traded with the Seville merchants, but falling in with a fleet of Turkey, they were nearly all taken prisoners, but my father was killed."
"You were a child then?" I asked her, and she said she was but an infant; and that her mother was long since dead also, and that she had no brothers.
She seemed as though she were about to add more, but just then the sick man revived, opening his eyes and gazing upon us as one that seemed to consider how we twain should be together in such a place. I got up from where I had been kneeling beside him and stood to stretch myself; but was surprised to find how painful my own hurts were, which I had almost forgotten to have received. I suppose Idonia saw me flinch, for she suddenly cried out, "Mr. Denis, Mr. Denis, I will come to you," and leaving Malpas where he lay, rose and came over to me, when she took me very gently by the arm and made me sit, as indeed I needed little persuasion to do. Howbeit I was (as I have said) scarcely scratched, and should have felt foolish at the elaborate business she made of it, had not her hair been so near to my lips.
But presently, and while we were thus employed, she with dressing my hurts, and I with such and such affairs, Idonia whispered—
"Doth he know where you lodge?"
"Yes," said I, "he discovered the place to-night," and told her where it was, and of the kindness Master Gregory had shown me.