stening process
you might be doing good to her soul, shaming the Devil, and giving
herself up meek and humble into the hands of the Church."

CHAPTER VI.

THE COVENANT.

Nothing was wanting but the victim. They knew that to bring this woman
before her was the most charming present she could receive. Tenderly
would she have acknowledged the devotion of anyone who would have
given her so great a token of his love, by delivering that poor
bleeding body into her hands.

But the prey was aware of the hunters. A few minutes later and she
would have been carried off, to be for ever sealed up beneath the
stone. Wrapping herself in some rags found by chance in the stable,
she took to herself wings of some kind, and before midnight gained
some out-of-the-way spot on a lonely moor all covered with briars and
thistles. It was on the skirts of a wood, where by the uncertain light
she might gather a few acorns, to swallow them like a beast. Ages had
elapsed since evening; she was utterly changed. Beauty and queen of
the village no more, she seemed with the change in her spirit to have
changed her postures also. Among her acorns she squatted like a boar
or a monkey. Thoughts far from human circled within her as she heard,
or seemed to hear the hooting of an owl, followed by a burst of
shrill laughter. She felt afraid, but perhaps it was the merry
mockbird mimicking all those sounds, according to its wonted fashion.

But the laughter begins again: whence comes it? She can see nothing.
Apparently it comes from an old oak. Distinctly, however, she hears
these words: "So, here you are at last! You have come with an ill
grace; nor would you have come now, if you had not tried the full
depth of your last need. You were fain first to run the gauntlet of
whips; to cry out and plead for mercy, haughty as you were; to be
mocked, undone, forsaken, unsheltered even by your husband. Where
would you have been this night, if I had not been charitable enough to
show you the _in pace_ getting ready for you in the tower? Late, very
late, you are in coming to me, and only after they have called you the
_old woman_. In your youth you did not treat me well, when I was your
wee goblin, so eager to serve you. Now take your turn, if so I wish
it, to serve me and kiss my feet.

"You were mine from birth through your inborn wickedness, through
those devilish charms of yours. I was your lover, your husband. Your
own has shut his door against you