Toward dusk the same day a beggar came trudging¹ over the moor². He was a most unclean and grotesquely³ ragged⁴ creature, almost too ragged to be genuine, nor had he the characteristic and unstudied gestures of the true vagrant⁵ who cannot let ten minutes pass without scratching some part of him. The fellow wore a dirty old hood⁶ that once had been lined with scarlet⁷ cloth. A white bandage covered his mouth and chin as though he had some foul⁸ disease that had to be hidden. His brown smock hung in tatters around his knees, and his wallet was such a thing of patches that no one could have told what color it had been in the beginning.  
This ragamuffin scouted⁹ his way toward the chapelry with stolid¹¹ circumspection¹². He seemed to have a liking¹³ for the gorse and a hatred¹⁴ of the heather; his love of cover led him a somewhat devious¹⁵ but successful course, in that he reached the top of the moor without Martin Valliant seeing him. Once there he crawled into a patch of furze, and so fitted himself under the ragged stems that he could see the chapel¹⁰, cell, and rest-house and anyone who came and went. Mellis was sitting on the bench outside the rest-house, looking at nothing with sad and vacant eyes. Martin Valliant stood reading in the doorway¹⁶ of his cell.
 
The beggar had a particular interest in Martin’s movements, in that he wanted him out of the way. The afterglow had faded, and night was settling over the moor.
 
“The devil take that priest! They should have learned before that old Jude was sick. And this damnable business——”
 
The furze was pricking¹⁷ the back of his neck.
 
“A pest on the stuff! And I have to tell the poor wench——”
 
He saw Martin Valliant put down his book and come out of the cell with a bucket in his hand. He was going down to the spring for water. The man in the furze perked¹⁸ up like a bird.
 
“God bless him, he has a thirst, or believes in being clean.”
 
He crawled out as soon as Martin had disappeared over the edge of the hill, and went quickly toward the rest-house, making signs with his hand.
 
Now Martin Valliant, being in a mood when a man walks with his head among the stars, had loitered just over the edge of the hill, staring at a broom bush as though it were the miraculous¹⁹ bush of Moses. But Martin’s eyes did not see the yellow flowers. He was looking inwards at himself, and at some wonderful vision that had painted itself upon his memory.
 
Therefore he was near enough to hear Mellis cry out as though some one had stabbed at her in the dark.
 
His dreams were gone in a moment. He turned, dropped the bucket, head in the air, nostrils²⁰ quivering, and began to run with great strides across the heather.
 
Then the sound of voices reached him, one of them speaking in short, agonized²¹ jerks. The other voice was answering in a cautious and half-soothing murmur²²; the other voice was a man’s.
 
Martin’s stride shortened; he faltered²³, paused, stopped dead, and then went on again, skirting the thorn hedge of the garden. It led him close to the back of the rest-house, and he went no farther.
 
He heard Mellis cry out:
 
“My God! Oh! my God!”
 
The man tried to calm her.
 
“Softly, Mistress Mellis, or that priest fellow may hear you. A man would rather cut his tongue out than bring you such news.”
 
“And you were with him?”
 
“Why, we had just turned out of the ‘Cock’ Tavern²⁴. The fellow dodged²⁵ out of a dark alley²⁶ behind us, and the knife was in before you could think of an oath. The bloody²⁷ rogue²⁸ went off at a run. I stayed with your brother.”
 
There was silence for a moment—a tense silence.
 
“Did he die there—in the gutter²⁹?”
 
The words were like the limping movements of a wounded dog.
 
“He was dead,” said the man softly, “before the watch came along. There will be a crowner’s quest, but we can keep a secret—for your sake.”
 
“My sake! What does it matter? Oh, if I but knew!”
 
“And that?”
 
“Who struck that blow.”
 
“Some hired beast.”
 
“I can guess that. But who ordered it—paid the blood money?”
 
The man seemed to hesitate.
 
“It has scared me, I grant you; one is afraid of a blank wall or a bush.”
 
“Roger Bland³⁰ of Troy?”
 
“It may be that you have said it.”
 
He was in a hurry to go; his voice betrayed his restlessness.
 
“The Flemming is at work. Bide³¹ here for a day or two, Mistress Dale. It is time I disappeared.”
 
“Yes, go. Let me try and think.”
 
“Gawdy Town is too dangerous now.”
 
“Man, I am not afraid, but I think my heart is broken.”
 
He gabbled a few words of comfort, and by the silence that followed Martin guessed that he had fled.
 
The light in the west had faded to a steely grayness, and the stars were out. Martin Valliant stood there for a while, picking loose mortar³² from between the stones, his whole heart yearning

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