Biting into the neck below, it had severed the outer
vein only. This he had tied with a thread of silk and burned with a hot
iron, leaving a scar that Hugh bore to his death, but staunching the
flow of blood.
"How know you that he will live?" asked Eve again, "seeing that he lies
like one that is sped."
"I know it, daughter. Question me no more. As for his stillness, it is
that which follows a heavy blow. Perhaps it may hold him fast many days,
since certainly he will be sick for long. Yet fear nothing; he will
live."
Now Eve uttered a great sigh. Her breast heaved and colour returned to
her lips. She knelt down and gave thanks as the old priest-knight had
bidden her. Then she rose, took his hand and kissed it.
"Yet one more question, Father," she said. "It is of myself. That knave
drugged me. I drank milk, and, save some dreams, remember no more till
I heard Hugh's voice calling. Now they tell me that I have stood at the
altar with de Noyon, and that his priest read the mass of marriage over
us, and--look! Oh! I never noted it till now--there is a ring upon my
hand," and she cast it on the floor. "Tell me, Father, according to the
Church's law is that man my--my husband?"
Sir Andrew's eloquent dark eyes, that ever shadowed forth the thoughts
which passed within him, grew very troubled.
"I cannot tell you," he answered awkwardly after thinking a while.
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