“You must excuse him,” replied Joan, rather coldly; “he lays it to your door that he is a poor man instead of a rich one. It is something about a piece of parchment, There was one amissing, and he got nought from the burgomaster all along of that one.”
“Alas! Gerard took it.”
“Likely, But my man says you should not have let him: you were pledged to him to keep them all safe. And sooth to Say, I blame not my Jorian for being wroth, 'Tis hard for a poor man to be so near fortune and lose it by those he has befriended. However, I tell him another story. Says I, 'Folk that are out o' trouble like you and me didn't ought to be too hard on folk that are in trouble; and she has plenty. Going already? What is all your hurry, mistress?”
“Oh, it is not for me to drive the goodman out of his own house.”
“Well, let me kiss the bairn afore ye go. He is not in fault anyway, poor innocent.”
Upon this cruel rebuff Margaret came to a resolution, which she did not confide even to Catherine.
After six weeks' stay that good woman returned home.
On the child's birthday, which occurred soon after, Margaret did no work; but put on her Sunday clothes, and took her boy in her arms and went to the church and prayed there long and fervently for Gerard's safe return.
That same day and hour Father Clement celebrated a mass and prayed for Margaret's departed soul in the minster church at Basle.