"I was a fool to cry, Meitje," he said, kissing her, "and it's no more than right that ye should know the truth. But it seemed as if it might be telling the secrets of the dead to talk about the matter."

"Is the man--the lad--thou wert talking of dead, think thee?" asked the vrouw, hiding the watch in her hand but seating herself expectantly on the end of his long foot bench.

"It's hard telling," he answered.

"No, not sick, I may say; but troubled, vrouw, very troubled."

"Had he done wrong, think ye?" she asked, lowering her voice.

"MURDER?" whispered the wife, not daring to look up.

"He said it was like to that, indeed."

"Oh! Raff, you frighten me. Tell me more, you speak so strange and you tremble. I must know all."