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For to Constans Esmay had just made a wife's final confession, the secret being whispered into his inmost ear, though there was only the land and the sea to overhear. Suddenly, on the darkened eastern sky-line, a bright light flashed out, in color like to a star, and yet incomparably more brilliant.
It's a woman against the world, and one of us will have to devour the other. Lucky, isn't it, that I woke up desperately hungry? That means that I'll make a fight for it. Have the first bite." "Esmay! You know that I have still my widow's rate." "Yes, and I also know that it is barely enough to keep one body and soul together; the two of us would only starve by inches.
The returning expedition from the south might even now be encamped at the High Bridge, and if Constans could help her at all it must be at once. Without waiting to parley further with herself, Esmay went to the door opening into the hall and looked out. The hour must be close upon midnight; the house was quiet and dark.
And the disturbing hand is generally that of a woman. Esmay had come between them, and it needed but the mention of her name that a certain constraint should at once manifest itself. "We'll have to drop the subject, then, or, rather, leave it where it began," said Ulick, breaking the final pause.
"What could Prosper hope to catch in such a snare for whom could he have set it?" asked Esmay, putting into audible language the question over which both were puzzling. "Unless," she went on, thoughtfully "unless this is only one of many." Nanna nodded. "Dozens, hundreds of them, and scattered all over the city. It is the harvest-field of which he spoke."
"Esmay!" he said, roughly, and shook her by the shoulders, not being in fear for himself but intent upon knowing the truth, however incredible. Then as she still gave no sign he flung her from him and strode away, the flame of a fierce anger in his heart. To die here the base fate of a runaway slave upon whose trail the master has set his hounds no, it should not be!
Esmay noticed a gleam of yellow light upon the threshold of his half-closed door as she passed it on winged feet, but there was nothing extraordinary in that it often burned there throughout the entire night. But he was talking to somebody; she could hear distinctly the opposition of the two voices.
For let it be known that Piers Minor had lost no time in bringing home his bride, and both he and Nanna had insisted that Esmay must live with them. And Esmay had accepted gratefully, for all that she was an heiress in her own right, through inheritance of her uncle Hugolin's estate, and could have bought and sold Piers Minor and Nanna, and all their holdings, ten times over.
Sophistry suggested that it might be the missing girl, Esmay, and certainly she who had walked here was the veiled woman of the temple worshippers; there were the footprints, broader and heavier in appearance, of her companion, and the halting progress of the black-chapped ruffian, who had accompanied them, was also plainly visible.
Later on, if the play goes against us, you may have to throw on the table your liberty, and, in the last extremity, your life. But that is the utmost limit of your losses. I, on the contrary, must contribute myself to the hazard, and no man understands what that means to a woman." "How long is it since the woman has understood?" he asked, mockingly, but Esmay was silent.
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