THE SNARE About noon of the day on which Hugh and his company had ridden for London, another company entered Dunwich--namely, Sir John Clavering and many of his folk, though with him were neither Sir Edmund Acour nor any of his French train.

Sir John's temper had never been of the best, for he was a man who, whatever his prosperity, found life hard and made it harder for all those about him.

But seldom had he been angrier than he was this day, when his rage was mingled with real sorrow for the loss of his only son, slain in a fight brought about by the daughter of one of them and the sister of the other and urged for honour's sake by himself, the father of them both.
Moreover, the marriage on which he had set his heart between Eve and the glittering French lord whose future seemed so great had been brought to naught, and this turbulent, hot-hearted Eve had fled into sanctuary.

Her lover, too, the youngest son of a merchant, had ridden away to London, doubtless upon some mission which boded no good to him or his, leaving a blood feud behind him between the wealthy de Cressis and all the Clavering kin.
There was but one drop of comfort in his cup.

By now, as he hoped, Hugh and his death's-head, Grey Dick, a spawn of Satan that all the country feared, and who, men said, was a de Cressi bastard by a witch, were surely slain or taken by those who followed upon their heels.
Sir John rode to the Preceptory and hammered fiercely on its oaken door.
Presently it was opened by Sir Andrew Arnold himself, who stood in the entrance, grey and grim, a long sword girt about his loins and armour gleaming beneath his monkish robe.
"What would you, Sir John Clavering, that you knock at this holy house thus rudely ?" he asked.
"My daughter, priest, who, they say, has sheltered here." "They say well, knight, she has sheltered here beneath the wings of St.
Mary and St.John.Begone and leave her in peace." "I make no more of such wings than if they were those of farmyard geese," roared the furious man.