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“ ‘I don’t know,’ he gasped, shaking his head, the flask pressed to his forehead as if it were so, when it was not

“ ‘It came into the inn?’

“ ‘They said she went out to it,’ he confessed, the tears coursing down his cheeks ‘Everything was locked! They saw to that Doors, s! Then it was one Thestood wide open, and she wasn’t there I didn’t even take ti I came to a dead halt over her, out there, behind the inn My foot all but ca there under the peach trees She held an e to it, an eive it water…’

“The flask slipped from his hands He clapped his hands over his ears, his body bent, his head bowed

“For a long ti him; I had no words to say to him And when he cried softly that they wanted to desecrate her, that they said she, Eh I don’t think he ever heard me, that she was not

“He ht fall He appeared to be reaching for the candle, and before his arer touched it so the hot wax extinguished the tiny bit that was left of the wick We were in darkness then, and his head had fallen on his arm

“All of the light of the rooathered now in Claudia’s eyes But as the silence lengthened and I sat there, wondering, hoping Morgan wouldn’t lift his head again, the woman came to the door Her candle illuminated him, drunk, asleep

“ ‘You go now,’ she said to ures crowded around her, and the old wooden inn was alive with the shuffling of men and women ‘Go by the fire!’

“ ‘What are you going to do!’ I de Claudia ‘I want to knohat you propose to do!’

“ ‘Go by the fire,’ she commanded

“ ‘No, don’t do this,’ I said But she narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth ‘You go!’ she growled

“ ‘Morgan,’ I said to him; but he didn’t hear me, he couldn’t hear me

“ ‘Leave him be,’ said the woman fiercely

“ ‘But it’s stupid, what you’re doing; don’t you understand? This woman’s dead!’ I pleaded with her

“ ‘Louis,’ Claudia whispered, so that they couldn’t hear her, her ar around my neck beneath the fur of my hood ‘Let these people alone’