"Haidee, I wish you would light a fire," said she, shivering in the chilly atmosphere. "The night is cool, and I am very thinly clad."
"There will be no fire to-night," said Haidee, curtly. "If you are cold go to bed and cover up under the bed-clothes."
"At least bring me a shawl to wrap about my shoulders," pleaded the girl.
"Not a rag," retorted the old woman, whose sharp temper was even more acid than usual to-night on account of her rencontre that evening.
"Does Mr. Colville wish me to suffer from cold as well as hunger?" inquired Lily, bitterly.
"I wish it whether he does or not!" answered Haidee, viciously.
"What noise was that I heard this evening?" inquired Lily, looking curiously at the old woman. "I was very much frightened by a succession of screams and oaths as if people were fighting—ah, and now that I look at you, Haidee, I see that there is something the matter with your face."
"Old Peter whipped me, if you must know the truth," snapped the witch.
"Whipped you!" said Lily, with an incredulous look; "oh, no, he would not whip his wife, would he?"
"Yes, he would, and did," retorted Haidee, with a grim sort of smile, as if she took a certain sort of pride in Peter's ferocity. "Oh, we think nothing of a rough-and-tumble fight now and then. Sometimes I get the better of him, sometimes he overpowers me, but it's often an even thing. Old Peter is a ferocious one, I can tell you. If you had knocked him down as you did me the time you escaped, he would have killed you when they brought you back."