At the worst you can come or send to me for help." So they parted, and the bridge having been lowered, Eve walked boldly to her father's sleeping chamber, where she was told he lay.

As she approached the door she met several of the household leaving it with scared faces, who scarcely stayed to salute her.

Among these were two servants of her dead brother John, men whom she had never liked, and a woman, the wife of one of them, whom she liked least of all.
Pushing open the door, which was shut behind her, she advanced toward Sir John, who was not, as she had thought, in bed, but clad in a furred robe and standing by the hearth, on which burnt a fire.

He watched her come, but said no word, and the look of him frightened her somewhat.
"Father," she said, "I heard that you were sick and alone----" "Ay," he broke in, "sick, very sick here," and he laid his hand upon his heart, "where grief strikes a man.

Alone, too, since you and your fellow have done my only son to death, murdered my guests, and caused them to depart from so bloody a house." Now Eve, who had come expecting to find her father at the point of death and was prepared to plead with him, at these violent words took fire as was her nature.
"You know well that you speak what is not true," she said.