“Ay, murderer. Louis is my child but none of yours. Our boy is dead. His name was Ronald Guy.”
Then she fell to singing that weird scrap of an old ballad that I had heard once before:
Is there ony room at your head, Ronald?
Is there ony room at your feet?
Is there ony room at your side, Ronald,
Where fain, fain I wad sleep?
The patroon sprang up from where he had been sitting on her bedside. He covered his face with his hands, and, for a moment, swayed back and forth, but he was not taken with one of his seizures as I feared. In a moment more he started for the door.
“Follow me, St. Vincent,” he said, and nothing more.
In silence he mounted his horse and spurred desperately away. I rode at his stirrup, awestruck and wondering what would happen next. He remained silent so far as words went, though sometimes he was muttering to himself. We had nearly reached the manor-house when he spoke briefly in cold tones, like a man asleep.
“I have killed my son. The day of reckoning has come.”