"Think who will be dead?" queried Wat, stopping instantly and facing her.
"Why, your enemy!" replied the Little Marie, calmly; "but let us go on lest the watch should come by and stop us."
"My enemy!" exclaimed Walter, putting his hand to his brow like one bewildered.
"Aye," said Marie, "the man you showed me and told me was your enemy—the dark man called Barra, the provost-marshal. I, the Little Marie, struck him in the side with a knife as he was mounting his horse to ride away—methinks I know whither. At any rate, it was on an evil quest. He rides on no others. Did I not tell you that he was my enemy before he was yours?"
"Struck my Lord Barra—with a knife, Marie?" stammered Wat. His slow Northern blood had not dreamed of such swift vengeance.
"Aye," said the girl, anxiously; "did I not do right? He was mine enemy, true. He it was who first brought me hither, left me friendless in this city of Satan, made me that which men think me. But had that been all his fault he might have lived. After all, that sin was mine as well as his. I struck him because he was your enemy, and because you hated him. Did I not well?"
"Marie," said Wat, very soberly, "you and I are as good as dead for this. Did any see you strike?"
"Aye, marry, there were," she replied, carelessly; "but I was well wrapped about in a red cloak and wore the cap and ear-plates of a peasant woman of Frisia. There were several that stood curiously about as I went near to hand him my petition at his own door. But what with the night, the reeling of the torches, and the instant confusion, none put out a hand to stay me as I went away. And I think he will surely be dead by this!"
She spoke the words dispassionately, like one who has done an unpleasing duty and has no further concern nor stake in the matter.
Instinctively their feet had turned into the street of Zaandpoort. Wat's heart suddenly leaped within him. He had come to see the house where he had been happy for a few hours. He would look just once upon the window whence his love had often looked forth, and at that other within which her dear head would even now be lying, shedding soft dishevelled curls distractingly over the pillow—ah! the heart-sickness! To think that never should he see it thus, never now lay his own close beside it, as in wild visions of the night he had often dreamed of doing.