her face. She was very pale, and
there were rings around her eyes that told of weeping and of vigil.
Oh, how she had prayed for Anthony, that he might be pardoned
wherein he might sin, strengthened wherein he was weak, purified
and enlightened in the inner man, and taught by the Holy Spirit of
God!

As she walked through the streets by her father's side, and marked
the gathering crowd thronging towards Carfax and the route to be
taken by the procession, she seemed to hear the words beaten out by
the tread of hurrying feet: "Faithful unto death--faithful unto
death--unto death!" till she could have cried aloud in the strange
turmoil of her spirit, "Faithful unto death--unto death!"

There was a convenient window in the house of a kindly citizen,
which had been put at her father's disposal. When they took their
places at it they saw the men already at work over the bonfire in
the centre of the cross roads. All the windows and the streets were
thronged with curious spectators, and almost at once the tolling of
the bells of various churches announced that the ceremony was about
to begin.

The procession, it was whispered about, was to start from St.
Mary's Church, to march to Carfax, where certain ceremonies were to
be performed, and then to proceed to St. Frideswyde, where a solemn
Mass would be performed, to which the penitents would be admitted.
Then, with a solemn benediction, they would be dismissed to their
own homes, and admitted to communion upon Easter Day.

Freda sat very still at the window, hearing little beside the heavy
beating of her own heart and the monotonous tolling of the bells.
The crowd was silent, too, and almost all the people were habited
in black, partly out of respect to the season of the Lord's
passion, partly because this ceremony took the nature of a solemn
humiliation.

Perhaps there were many standing in that close-packed crowd who
knew themselves to have been as "guilty"--if guilt there were--as
those who were compelled to do penance that day. There was evident
sympathy on many faces, and the girl, looking down from above,
noted how many groups there were talking earnestly and quietly
together, and how they threw quick glances over their shoulders, as
though half afraid lest what they were saying might be overheard.

"I trow there are many here who have dared to read the Word of God
and discuss it freely together, and compare the church as it now is
with the church, the Bride of the