.
An opportunity shall be given you to speak with her. Now put on this
dress'--and he handed me a white Dominican hood and robe--'and follow
me.'

'First,' I said, 'let me give this medicine to the abbess, for I will
have no hand in its administering. Take it, mother, and when the time
comes, pour the contents of the phial into a cup of water. Then, having
touched the mouth and tongue of the babe with the fluid, give it to the
mother to drink and be sure that she does drink it. Before the bricks
are built up about them both will sleep sound, never to wake again.'

'I will do it,' murmured the abbess; 'having absolution I will be bold,
and do it for love and mercy's sake!'

'Your heart is too soft, sister. Justice is mercy,' said the monk with a
sigh. 'Alas for the frailty of the flesh that wars against the spirit!'

Then I clothed myself in the ghastly looking dress, and they took lamps
and motioned to me to follow them.

CHAPTER X

THE PASSING OF ISABELLA DE SIGUENZA

Silently we went down the long passage, and as we went I saw the eyes of
the dwellers in this living tomb watch us pass through the gratings of
their cell doors. Little wonder that the woman about to die had striven
to escape from such a home back to the world of life and love! Yet for
that crime she must perish. Surely God will remember the doings of such
men as these priests, and the nation that fosters them. And, in deed, He
does remember, for where is the splendour of Spain to-day, and where are
the cruel rites she gloried in? Here in England their fetters are broken
for ever, and in striving to bind them fast upon us free Englishmen she
is broken also--never to be whole again.

At the far end of the passage we found a stair down which we passed. At
its foot was an iron-bound door that the monk unlocked and locked
again upon the further side. Then came another passage hollowed in the
thickness of the wall, and a second door, and we were in the place of
death.

It was a vault low and damp, and the waters of the river washed its
outer wall, for I could hear their murmuring in the silence. Perhaps the
place may have measured ten paces in length by eight broad. For the rest
its roof was supported by massive columns, and on one side there was a
second door that led to a prison cell. At the further end of this gloomy
den, that was dimly lighted by torches and lamps, two men with hooded
heads, and draped in coarse black gowns, were at work,