“But thyself?”
“No. O my Damsel, no!” She warmed into vivid life for an instant, to make this reply; then she sank back against the wall, apparently overpowered by utter weariness.
“I am glad of that,” said Margaret, with her usual outspoken earnestness.—“What can Levina be doing? Doucebelle, do go and see.—And hast thou been hard at work at Norwich all the summer, Belasez?”
“No, if it please my Damsel. I have dwelt all this summer at Lincoln, with my mother’s father.”
“‘The Devil overlooks Lincoln,’ they say,” remarked Margaret, laughingly. “I hope he did thee no mischief, Belasez. But, perhaps Jews do not believe in the Devil?”
“Ah! We have good cause to believe in the Devil,” answered Belasez gravely. “Nay, Damsel, he did me no mischief. Yet—what know I? The Holy One knoweth all things.”
Belasez’s tone struck Margaret as hinting at some one thing in particular. But she did not explain further. Perhaps she was too tired.
Doucebelle returned at this point, followed by Levina, who carried a plate of manchet-bread and a bowl of milk. And though Belasez did not know it, she owed thanks to Doucebelle that it was not skim milk. The young Jewess ate as if she were very faint as well as weary.
“Then hast thou come here all the way from Lincoln?” inquired Margaret when the bowl was emptied.
“If it please my Damsel, no. I had returned home only two days before the riot.”