Lambert, too, at sight of the cortege had gone to the Quakeress, the kind soul who had cared for him and his brother, two nameless lads, without home save the one she had provided for them.  He trusted in Squire Boatfield’s sense of humanity not to force this septuagenarian to an effort of nerve and will altogether beyond her powers.

Together the two young people were using gentle persuasion to get the old woman to the back room, whence she could not see the dreary scene now or presently, the slow winding of the dismal little procession down the road which leads to Minster, and whence she could not hear that weird flapping of the wet sheet against the side of the coffin, an echo to the slow and muffled tolling of the church bell some little distance away.

But the old woman was obstinate.  She struggled against the persuasion of young arms.  Things had been said in her cottage just now, which she must hear more distinctly:  vague accusations had been framed, a cruel and sneering laugh had echoed through the house from whence one of her lads—­Adam—­was absent.

“No! no!” she said with quiet firmness, as Lambert urged her to withdraw, “let be, lad ... let be ... ye cannot deceive the old woman all of ye....  The Lord hath put wool in my ears, so I cannot hear ... but my eyes are good....  I can see your faces....  I can read them....  Speak man!” she said, as she suddenly disengaged herself from Richard’s restraining arms and walked deliberately up to Marmaduke de Chavasse, “speak man....  Didst thou accuse Adam?”

An involuntary “No!” escaped from the squire’s kindly heart and lips.  But Sir Marmaduke shrugged his shoulders.

The crisis which by his own acts, by his own cowardice, he himself had precipitated, was here now.  Fatality had overtaken him.  Whether the whole truth would come to light he did not know.  Truly at this moment he hardly cared.  He did not feel as if he were himself, but another being before whom stood another Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse, on whom he—­a specter, a ghoul, a dream figure—­was about to pass judgment.

He knew that he need do nothing now, for without his help or any effort on his part, that morbid curiosity which had racked his brain for two days would be fully satisfied.  He would know absolutely now, exactly what everyone thought of the mysterious French prince and of his terrible fate on Epple sands.

Thank Satan and all his hordes of devils that heavy chalk boulders had done so complete a work of obliteration.

But whilst he looked down with complete indifference on the old woman, she looked about from one face to the other, trying to read what cruel thoughts of Adam lurked behind those obvious expressions of sympathy.

“So that foreign devil hath done mischief at last,” she now said loudly, her tremulous voice gaining in strength as she spoke, “the Lord would not allow him to do it living ... so the devil hath helped him to it now that he is dead....  But I tell you that Adam is innocent....  There was no harm in the lad ... a little rough at times ... but no harm ... he’d no father to bring him up ... and his mother was a wanton ... so there was only the foolish old woman to look after the boys ... but there’s no harm in the lad ... there’s no harm!”