ment Maldon--and froze us with his cruel eyes, and said, 'What do you
with the witch's daughter? She is not for you.' And--oh! Thomas, I
can no more of it," and she broke down and sobbed, then added, "Swear
nothing; get you gone and betray me, if you will. I'll bear you no
malice, even when I die for it, for after more than twenty years of
monkcraft, how could I hope that you would still remain a man? Come,
get you gone swiftly, ere they take us together, and your fair fame is
besmirched. Quick, now, and leave me and my lady and her unborn child
to the doom Maldon brews for us. Alas! for the copse by the river; alas!
for the withered lilies!"

Thomas heard; the big blue veins stood out upon his forehead, his great
breast heaved, his utterance choked. At length the words came in a thick
torrent.

"I'll not go, dearie; I'll swear what you will, by your eyes and by your
lips, by the flowers on which we trod, by all the empty years of aching
woe and shame, by God upon His throne in heaven, and by the devil in
his fires in hell. Come, come," and he ran to the altar and clasped the
crucifix that stood there. "Say the words again, or any others that you
will, and I'll repeat them and take the oath, and may fiery worms eat me
living for ever and ever if I break a letter of it."

With a little smile of triumph in her dark eyes Emlyn bent over the
kneeling man and whispered--whispered through the gathering bloom, while
he whispered after her, and kissed the Rood in token.

It was done, and they drew away from the altar back to the painted
saint.

"So you are a man after all," she said, laughing aloud. "Now, man--my
man--who, if we live through this, shall be my husband if you will--yes,
my husband, for I'll pay, and be proud of it--listen to my commands. See
you, I am Moses, and yonder in the Abbey sits Pharaoh with a hardened
heart, and you are the angel--the destroying angel with the sword of the
plagues of Egypt. To-night there will be fire in the Abbey--such fire as
fell on Cranwell Towers. Nay, nay, I know; the church will not burn, nor
all the great stone halls. But the dormitories, and the storehouses,
and the hayricks, and the cattle-byres, they'll flame bravely after this
time of drought, and if the wains are ashes, how will they draw in their
harvest? Will you do it, my man?"

"Surely. Have I not sworn?"

"Then away to the work, and afterwards--to-morrow or next day--come back
and make report. Just now I am much