th energy, "while I live no more of
that evil beast for me. Henceforth I'll walk till I am carried. Keep it,
Thomas, as a gift; it is bought and paid for. Sister, your arm."

"Have I done well, Emlyn?" Bolle asked, as he tightened the girths.

"I don't know," she answered, looking at him sideways. "You played the
cur at first, leaving us to burn for your sins, but afterwards, well,
you found the wits you say you never lost. Also your manners mended, and
yonder captain knave learned that you can handle an axe, so we'll say
no more about it, lad, for doubtless that Abbot and his spies were sore
task-masters and broke your spirit with their penances and talk of hell
to come. Here, lift my lady on to this horse, for she is spent, and
let me lean upon your shoulder, Thomas. It's weary work standing at a
stake."

Cicely's recollections of the remainder of that day were always shadowy
and tangled. She remembered a prayer of thanksgiving in which she took
small part with her lips, she whose heart was one great thanksgiving.
She remembered the good sister who had given them the relics of St.
Catherine assuring her, as she received them back with care, that
these and these alone had worked the miracle and saved their lives. She
remembered eating food and straining her boy to her breast, and then she
remembered no more till she woke to see the morning sun streaming into
that same room whence on the previous day they had been led out to
suffer the most horrible of deaths.

Yes, she woke, and see, near by was Emlyn making ready her garments, as
she had done these many years, and at her side lay the boy crowing in
the sunlight and waving his little arms, the blessed boy who knew not
the terrors he had passed. At first she thought that she had dreamed a
very evil dream, till by degrees all the truth came back to her, and
she shivered at its memory, yes, even as the weight of it rolled off her
heart she shivered and whitened like an aspen in the wind. Then she rose
and thanked God for His mercies, which were great.

Oh, if the strength of that horse of Thomas Bolle's had failed one short
five minutes sooner, she, in whom the red blood still ran so healthily,
would have been but a handful of charred bones. Or if her faith had left
her so that she had yielded to the Abbot and shortened all his talk at
the place of burning, then Bolle would have come too late. But it proved
sufficient to her need, and for this also truly she shoul