s eyes burning in an ashen
face.

"What will you do with me?"

"This has been your day of triumph, father. I would round it off
worthily by helping you to a martyr's crown. Gawain," and he turned to
his companion, "go up the road and fetch me the rope which binds the
minister."

The runaway was feeding peaceably by the highway. Champernoun cut the
old man's bonds, and laid him fainting on the grass. He brought back
with him a length of stout cord.

"Let the brute live," he said. "Duck him and truss him up, but don't
dirty your hands with him. I'd as lief kill a woman as a monk."

But Gaspard's smiling face was a rock. "This is no Englishman's concern.
To-day's shame is France's and a Frenchman alone can judge it. Innocent
blood is on this man's hands, and it is for me to pay the first
instalment of justice. The rest I leave to God."

So when an hour later the stunned troopers recovered their senses they
found a sight which sent them to their knees to patter prayers. For over
the arch of the bridge dangled the corpse of the Jacobin. And on its
breast it bore a paper setting forth that this deed had been done by
Gaspard de Laval, and the Latin words "O si sic omnes!"

Meantime far up in the folds of the Santerre a little party was moving
through the hot afternoon. The old Huguenot, shaken still by his rough
handling, rode as if in a trance. Once he roused himself and asked about
the monk.

"I hanged him like a mad dog," said Gaspard.

The minister shook his head. "Violence will not cure violence."

"Nay, but justice may follow crime. I am no Nicodemite. This day I have
made public confession of my faith, and abide the consequences. From
this day I am an exile from France so long as it pleases God to make His
Church an anvil for the blows of His enemies."

"I, too, am an exile," said the old man. "If I come safe to Calais I
shall take ship for Holland and find shelter with the brethren there.
You have preserved my life for a few more years in my master's vineyard.
You say truly, young sir, that God's Church is now an anvil, but
remember for your consolation that it is an anvil which has worn out
many hammers."

Late in the evening they came over a ridge and looked down on a shallow
valley all green and gold in the last light. A slender river twined by
alder and willow through the meadows. Gaspard reined in his horse and
gazed on the place with a hand shading his eyes.

"I have slain a man to my hurt," he s