Then he left me, and I went away toward the kiddleywink like one dazed. I made no pretence of eating the supper which had been prepared, neither did I speak to Eli, who looked at me pityingly; and I saw that tears dropped from his strange-looking, cross eyes, and rolled down his ugly, misshapen face.
All hope had now gone from me; I felt I had no desire to win back my own, or even to live. My life had more and more become bound up in that of Naomi Penryn, until now, when I could no longer comfort myself with the hope that she lived, nothing was of value to me.
"Eli," I said, presently, "you had better go to bed. You will need all your strength."
"Why, Maaster Jasper?"
"Because to-morrow I shall go with you back to St. Eve."
"And what then, Maaster Jasper?"
"I do not know," I said; "it does not matter what becomes of me now."
"And why, Maaster Jasper? Poor little Eli do love 'ee, love 'ee deearly."
"But my love is dead," I answered; and then I told him what the priest had told me.