"I'll come some other time, mistress," he said with obvious nervousness. "Mistress de Chavasse desires to speak with you, and I'll return later on in the evening . . . when you are alone. . . ."
"Nay! nay, man! . . ." rejoined the Quakeress, "prithee, sit again . . . the evening is young yet . . . and what I may tell thee now has something to do with this fine lady here. Wilt question me again? I would mayhap reply."
She stood close to the table, one wrinkled hand resting upon it; the guttering candles cast strange, fantastic lights on her old face, surmounted with the winged coif, and weird shadows down one side of her face. Editha, awed and subdued, gazed on her with a kind of fear, even of horror.
In a dark corner of the little room the straight outline of the long deal box could only faintly be perceived in the gloom. Richard Lambert, silent and oppressed, stood close beside it, his face in shadow, his eyes fixed with a sense of inexplicable premonition on the face of Editha de Chavasse.
"Now, wilt question me again, man?" asked the old Quakeress, turning to the squire, "the Lord hath willed that my ears be clear to-day. Wilt question me? . . . I'll hear thee . . . and I'll give answer to thy questions. . . ."
"Nay, mistress," replied the squire, pointing to the ink and the paper on the table, "methought you would wish to see the murderer of your . . . your nephew . . . swing on the gallows for his crime. . . . I would sign this paper here ordering the murderer of the smith of Acol to be apprehended as soon as found . . . and to be brought forthwith before the magistrate . . . there to give an account of his doings. . . . I asked you then to give me the full Christian and surname of the man whom the neighborhood and I myself thought was your nephew . . . and to my surprise, you seemed to hesitate and . . ."
"And I'll hesitate no longer," she interposed firmly. "Let the lad there ask me his dead brother's name and I'll tell him. . . . I'll tell him . . . if he asks . . ."
"Justice must be done against Adam's murderer, dear mistress," said Richard gently, for the old woman had paused and turned to him, evidently waiting for him to speak. "My brother's real name, his parentage, might explain the motive which led an evildoer to commit such an appalling crime. Therefore, dear mistress, do I ask thee to tell us my brother's name, and mine own."
"'Tis well done, lad . . . 'tis well done," she rejoined when Richard had ceased speaking, and silence had fallen for awhile on that tiny cottage parlor, "'tis well done," she reiterated. "The secret hath weighed heavily upon my old shoulders these past few years, since thou and Adam were no longer children. . . . But I swore to thy grandmother who died in the Lord, that thou and Adam should never hear of thy mother's wantonness and shame. . . . I swore it on her death-bed and I have kept my oath . . . but I am old now. . . . After this trouble, mine hour will surely come. . . . I am prepared but I will not take thy secret, lad, with me into my grave."
She shuffled across to the old oak dresser which occupied one wall of the little room. Two pairs of glowing eyes followed her every movement; those of Richard Lambert, who seemed to see a vision of his destiny faintly outlined—still blurred—but slowly unfolding itself in the tangled web of fate; and then those of Editha, who even as the old woman spoke had felt a tidal wave of long-forgotten memories sweeping right over her senses. The look in the Quakeress's eyes, the words she uttered—though still obscure and enigmatical—had already told her the whole truth. As in a flash she saw before her, her youth and all its follies, the gay life of thoughtlessness and pleasures, the cradles of her children, the tiny boys who to the woman of fashion were but a hindrance and a burden.