Now with sorrow and pity in her heart and countenance, now with anger and loathing, she listened until he had done, and even when he ceased speaking, and flung himself into the nearest chair, she sat on in silence for a spell.
Then of a sudden she turned a pair of flashing eyes upon the boy, and in tones charged with a scorn ineffable: "You dare," she cried, "to speak of that man as you do, knowing all this?
Knowing what he has suffered, you dare to rail in his absence against those sins to which his misfortunes have driven him?
How, think you, would it have fared with you, you fool, had you stood in the shoes of this unfortunate?
Had you fallen on your craven knees, and thanked the Lord for allowing you to keep your miserable life?
Had you succumbed to the blows of fate with a whine of texts upon your lips?
Who are you ?" she went on, rising, breathless in her wrath, which caused him to recoil in sheer affright before her.

"Who are you, and what are you, that knowing what you know of this man's life, you dare to sit in judgment upon his actions and condemn them?
Answer me, you fool!" But never a word had he wherewith to meet that hail of angry, contemptuous questions.

The answer that had been so ready to his lips that night at Worcester, when, in a milder form the Tavern Knight had set him the same question, he dared not proffer now.

The retort that Sir Crispin had not cause enough in the evil of others, which had wrecked his life, to risk the eternal damnation of his soul, he dared no longer utter.

Glibly enough had he said to that stern man that which he dared not say now to this sterner beauty.