Knocked again.

No answer.

I pushed the door softly open and looked in.
I made out some dim forms, and a woman started up from the ground and stared at me, as one does who is wakened from sleep.

Presently she found her voice: "Have mercy!" she pleaded.

"All is taken, nothing is left." "I have not come to take anything, poor woman." "You are not a priest ?" "No." "Nor come not from the lord of the manor ?" "No, I am a stranger." "Oh, then, for the fear of God, who visits with misery and death such as be harmless, tarry not here, but fly! This place is under his curse--and his Church's." "Let me come in and help you--you are sick and in trouble." I was better used to the dim light now.