'Where is she?' I muttered, when he came back and I had drunk.
'Who? Marie?' he asked.
'Yes, if that is her name,' I said, drinking again.
'She is lying down upstairs,' he answered. 'She is worn out, poor child. Not that in one sense, Master Martin,' he continued, dropping his voice and nodding with a mysterious air, 'she is poor. Though you might think it.'
'How do you mean?' I said, raising my head and meeting his eyes. He nodded.
'It is between ourselves,' he said; 'but I am afraid there is a good deal in what our rascals here say. I am afraid, to be plain, Master Martin, that the father was like all his kind: plundered many an honest citizen, and roasted many a poor farmer before his own fire. It is the way of soldiers in that army; and God help the country they march in, be it friend's or foe's!'
'Well?' I said impatiently; 'but what of that now?' The mention of these things fretted me. I wanted to hear nothing about the father. 'The man is dead,' I said.
'Ay, he is,' Peter answered slowly and impressively. 'But the daughter? She has got a necklace round her neck now, worth--worth I dare say two hundred men at arms.'
'What, ducats?'
'Ay, ducats! Gold ducats. It is worth all that.'