“Nay, wife, give the child her raiment and jewels.”
“I’ll give her what belongs to her, and that’s a hot iron, if she does not get out of that door this minute!”
“Wife!”
“I’ll spoil her pretty face for her!” shrieked Licorice. “I never liked the vain chit overmuch, nor Anegay neither: but if she does not go, I’ll give her something she won’t forget in a hurry!”
“Come, my Beatrice,—quick!” said Bruno.
“Go, go, my Belasez, and God keep thee!” sobbed Abraham.
And so Belasez was driven away from her old home. She had hardly expected it. It had always been a trouble to her, and a cause of self-reproach, that she and Licorice did not love each other better: and she was not able to repress a sensation of satisfaction in making the discovery that Licorice was not her mother. Yet Belasez had not looked for this.
“What are we to do, Father?” she asked rather blankly.
“I must lodge thee with the Sisters of Saint Clare, my child; there is nothing else to be done. I will come and fetch thee away so soon as my arrangements can be made.”
Beatrice,—as we must henceforth call her,—did not fancy this arrangement at all. Bruno detected as much in her face.