'Hush. Don't speak so!' said the maiden, looking timidly over her shoulder to the undergrowth and coppice growing dim in the shadows of the evening.
'Tis the truth!' said Caris stubbornly. 'I did my duty by her, poor soul; and yet I fear me the Evil One waited for her all the while, for as soon as the rattle came in her throat, a white owl flapped and screeched on the thatch, and a black cat had sat on the stones yonder ever since the sun had set.'
'The saints preserve us!' murmured the girl, her rich brown and red skin growing pale.
There was silence; Caris finished munching his bread; he looked now and then at his visitor with open-eyed surprise and mute expectation.
'You have buried the things with her?' she asked him, in a low tone, at length.
He nodded in assent.
'What a pity! What a pity!'
'Why that?'
'Because if they are underground with her nobody can use them.'
Caris stared with his eyes wider opened still.