Marpasse grimaced.
“Why will you walk on thorns?” she said; “some people can never satisfy their consciences!”
Denise still hid her face in the long grass.
“It is for Aymery’s sake.”
“Bah!” quoth Marpasse; “you will give him a stone, will you—when he is hungry.”
She got up from under the rose tree, and went towards the gate.
“I have left you the bread,” she said, “and it is better to eat bread and be contented than to look for rents in one’s own soul. Messire Aymery shall not know that you are here, if you will promise me one thing.”
Denise raised herself upon her elbow.
“Stay here till to-morrow. I will put it all before Father Grimbald. He is a man with a head and a heart. For the rest, my dear, put that bread into your body and sleep ten hours by the sun.”