re that his heart, though grieved, was not altogether
hardened against his child; for when at the last, with tears in her
eyes (all other farewells being said), she knelt at his feet
begging his blessing and forgiveness, he laid his hand upon her
head for a moment, and let her embrace his knees with her arms.

"Go your way, my girl, if needs must be. Your mother will ever pray
for you, and I trust the Lord whom you serve will not leave you,
though His ways are too hard of understanding for me."

That was all she could win from him; but her heart was comforted, I
think; for as she reached her lodging and turned at the door of her
room to thank me in the gracious way she never forgot, for such
poor services as I had rendered, she said in a soft and happy
voice:

"I think that in his heart my father hath forgiven me!"

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW I LAST SAW THE MAID.

I had thought, when I started, to tell the whole tale of the
Angelic Maid and all the things which she accomplished, and all
that we who companied with her did and saw, both of success and of
failure. But now my brain and my pen alike refuse the task. I must
needs shorten it. I think my heart would well nigh break a second
time, if I were to seek to tell all that terrible tale which the
world knows so well by now.

Ah me! Ah me!--what a world is this wherein we live, in which such
things can be! I wake sometimes even yet in the night, a cold sweat
upon my limbs, my heart beating to suffocation, a terror as of
great darkness enfolding my spirit.

And is it wonderful that it should be so? Can any man pass through
such experiences as mine, and not receive a wound which time can
never wholly heal? And though great things have of late been done,
and the Pope and his Court have swept away all such stain and taint
as men sought to fasten upon the pure nature of the wonderful and
miraculous Maid, we who lived through those awful days, and heard
and saw the things which happened at that time, can never forget
them, and (God pardon me if I sin in this) never forgive. There are
men, some living still, and some passed to their last account, whom
I would doom to the nethermost hell for their deeds in the days of
which I must now write--though my words will be so few. And (with
horror and shame be it spoken) many of these men were consecrated
servants of the Holy Church, whose very office made the evil of
their deeds to stand out in blacker hues.

It is easy for us