“Nay, trouble not thyself over me; thou knowest that my life’s sands are well-nigh run out.  I have been spared for this work, that thou, my Raymond, gavest me to do.  I am well satisfied, and thou must be the same, my kind cousin.  Only let me have thee with me to the end —­ and sweet Mistress Joan, if kind fortune will so favour us.  And tell us now of thyself, Raymond, and how it fared with thee before thou camest hither.  Hast thou been with Father Paul?  And if so, why didst thou leave him?  Is he, too, dead?”

“He was not when we parted; he went forward to London when he bid me come to see how it fared with thee, good John, and bring thee his blessing.  I should have been with thee one day earlier, save that I turned aside to Basildene, where I heard that the old man lay dying alone.”

“Basildene!” echoed both his hearers quickly.  “Has the Black Death been there?”

“Ay, and the old man who is called a sorcerer is dead.  To me it was given to soothe his dying moments, and give him such Christian burial as men may have when there be no priest at hand to help them to their last rest.  I was in time for that.”

“Peter Sanghurst dead!” mused John thoughtfully; and looking up at Raymond, he said quickly, “Did he know who and what thou wert?”

“He did; for in his delirium he took me for my mother, and his terror was great, knowing her to be dead.  When I told him who I was, he was right glad; and he would fain have made over to me the deeds by which he holds Basildene —­ the deeds my mother left behind her in her flight, and which he seized upon.  He would fain have made full reparation for that one evil deed of his life; but his son, who had held aloof hitherto, and would have left his father to die untended and alone —­”

Joan had uttered a little exclamation of horror and disgust; now she asked, quickly and almost nervously: 

“The son —­ Peter Sanghurst?  O Raymond, was that bad man there?”

“Yes; and he knows now who and what I am, whereby his old hatred to me is bitterly increased.  He holds that I have hindered and thwarted him before in other matters.  Now that he knows I have a just and lawful claim on Basildene, which one day I will make good, he hates me with a tenfold deadlier hatred.”

“Hates you —­ when you came to his father in his last extremity?  How can he dare to hate you now?”

Raymond smiled a shadowy smile as he looked into the fire.

“Methinks he knows little of filial love.  He knew that his father had been stricken with the distemper, but he left him to die alone.  He would not have come nigh him at all, save that he heard sounds in the house, and feared that robbers had entered, and that his secret treasure hoards might fall into their hands.  He had come down armed to the teeth to resist such marauders, being willing rather to stand in peril of the distemper than to lose his ill-gotten gold.  But he found none such as he thought; yet