‘For certain then, sir, you’ve come too late,’ croaked the old woman.
Sebastian rose angrily.
‘Have a care what you say,’ he exclaimed. ‘And now, if you’ll do me a service, you shall go and buy all that Anne Champion needs—a bed to lie on——’
‘And die on,’ interpolated Mrs. Nare viciously, but Sebastian gave no heed to her remark, only went on with his enumeration:—
‘And blankets to cover her, and food to eat and wine to drink—all these things she must have before the day is done; so hasten you—if so be you wish for this.’ He drew from his pocket a coin and laid it in the old woman’s hand.
‘A bed and blankets. Food and wine and fire,’ repeated Mistress Nare. ‘Good lack, sir, dyin’ Anne she’ve not got so much as will buy a shroud to wrap her in!’
‘Here,’ said Sebastian hastily, shaking out from his purse a handful of coins. ‘How much will you require?’ Mrs. Nare was convinced.
‘Happen three guineas, sir, to begin with,’ she said, and her crooked old fingers closed greedily over the yellow coins.
‘Well, hasten—hasten,’ said Sebastian, and Mrs. Nare shuffled off down the stair chuckling and curious.
‘Dyin’ Annie’s gotten a lover up to the last, Matthew,’ she said as she passed her son on the stair. So much for maternal jealousy.