ay my dues to the Church, and shrive me [confess sins to a
priest] metely oft, and so forth? Ay, I reckon I do," said Amphillis,
in a tone which sounded rather as if she meant "I don't."

"Hast alway done thy duty, Amphillis?"

"Alack, no, Mistress. Yet meseemeth there be worser folks than I. I am
alway regular at shrift."

"The which shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed
in duty. But how shall our Lord make thee safe?"

"Why, forgive me my sins," replied Amphillis, looking puzzled.

"That saith what He shall do, not how He shall do it. Thy sins are a
debt to God's law and righteousness. Canst thou pay a debt without
cost?"

"But forgiveness costs nought."

"Doth it so? I think scarce anything costs more. Hast ever meditated,
Amphillis, what it cost God to forgive sin?"

"I thought it cost Him nothing at all."

"Child, it could only be done in one of two ways, at the cost of His
very self. Either He should forgive sin without propitiation--which
were to cost His righteousness and truth and honour. Could that be? In
no wise. Then it must be at the cost of His own bearing the penalty due
unto the sinner. Thy sins, Amphillis, thine every failure in duty,
thine every foolish thought or wrongful word, cost the Father His own
Son out of His bosom, cost the Son a human life of agony and a death of
uttermost terribleness. Didst thou believe that?"

A long look of mingled amazement and horror preceded the reply.
"Mistress Perrote, I never thought of no such thing! I thought--I
thought," said Amphillis, struggling for the right words to make her
meaning clear, "I thought our Lord was to judge us for our sins, and our
blessed Lady did plead with Him to have mercy on us, and we must do the
best we could, and pray her to pray for us. But the fashion you so put
it seemeth--it seemeth certain, as though the matter were settled and
done with, and should not be fordone [revoked]. Is it thus?"

If Perrote de Carhaix had not been gifted with the unction from the Holy
One, she would have made a terrible mistake at that juncture. All that
she had been taught by man inclined her to say "no" to the question.
But "there are a few of us whom God whispers in the ear," and those who
hear those whispers often go utterly contrary to man's teaching, being
bound only by God's word. So bound they must be. If they speak not
according to that word, it is because there is no light in them--only an
_