ould you give for some that I have seen and
that are _not_ burned?"

"Accursed spawn of Satan," hissed the Abbot, "how dare you flaunt me
thus? When Cicely was wed to Christopher she wore those very gems;
I have it from those who saw her decked in them--the necklace on her
bosom, the priceless rosebud pearls hanging from her ears."

"Oho! oho!" said Emlyn; "so you own that she was wed, the pure soul whom
but now you called a wanton. Look you, Sir Abbot, we will fence no
more. She wore the jewels. Jeffrey took nothing hence save your
death-warrant."

"Then where are they?" he asked, striking his fist upon the table.

"Where? Why, where you'll never follow them--gone up to heaven in the
fire. Thinking we might be robbed, I hid them behind a secret panel in
her chamber, purposing to return for them later. Go, rake out the ashes;
you might find a cracked diamond or two, but not the pearls; they fly in
fire. There, that's the truth at last, and much good may it do to you."

The Abbot groaned. Like most Spaniards he was emotional, and could not
help it; his bitterness burst from his heart.

Emlyn laughed at him.

"See how the wise and mighty of this world overshoot themselves," she
said. "Clement Maldonado, I have known you for some twenty years, and
when I was called the Beauty of Blossholme, and the Abbot who went
before you made me the Church's ward, though I ever hated you, who
hunted down my father, you had softer words for me than those you name
me by to-day. Well, I have watched you rise and I shall watch you fall,
and I know your heart and its desires. Money is what you lust for and
must have, for otherwise how will you gain your end? It was the
jewels that you needed, not the Shefton lands, which are worth little
now-a-days, and will soon be worth less. Why, one of those pink pearls
placed among the Jews would buy three parishes, with their halls thrown
in. For the sake of those jewels you have brought death on some and
misery on some, and on your own soul damnation without end, though had
you but been wise and consulted me--why, they, or some of them, might
have been yours. Sir John was no fool; he would have parted with a pearl
or two, of which he did not know the value, to end a feud against
the Church and safeguard his title and his daughter. And now, in your
madness, you've burnt them--burnt a king's ransom, or what might have
pulled down a king. Oh! had you but guessed it, you'd have hacked off
the hand