“I will be faithful to my mother.  Go, Jacqueline,—­let me alone.”

Elsie said this with so much spirit that Jacqueline answered quickly, and yet very kindly,—­

“I did not mean to trouble you, dear,—­but—­no matter now.”

No sooner had Jacqueline left the house than Elsie went down to a church near by, where she confessed herself to the priest, and received such goodly counsel as was calculated to fortify her against Jacqueline in the future.

* * * * *

Jacqueline went to the house of the wool-comber, as of late had been her nightly custom,—­but not, as heretofore, to lighten the loneliness and anxiety of the mother of Leclerc.  Already she had said to the old woman,—­

“I need not work now for my father’s redemption.  Then I will work for you, if your son is disabled.  Let us believe that God brought me here for this.  I am strong.  You can lean on me.  Try it.”

Now she went to make repetition of the promise to Leclerc, if, perchance, he had come back to his mother sick and sore and helpless.  For this reason, when she entered the humble home of the martyr, his eyes fell on her, and he saw her as she had been an angel; how serene was her countenance; and her courage was manifestly such as no mortal fear, no human affliction, could dismay.

Already in that room faithful friends had gathered, to congratulate the living man, and to refresh their strength from the abounding richness of his.

Martial Mazurier, the noted preacher, was there, and Victor Le Roy; besides these, others, unknown by name or presence to Jacqueline.

Among them was the wool-comber,—­wounded with many stripes, branded, a heretic!  But a man still, it appeared,—­a living man,—­brave as any hero, determined as a saint,—­ready to proclaim now the love of God, and from the couch where he was lying to testify to Jesus and his Truth.

It was a goodly sight to see the tenderness of these men here gathered; how they were forgetful of all inequalities of station, such as worldlings live by,—­meeting on a new ground, and greeting one another in a new spirit.

They had come to learn of John.  A halo surrounded him; he was transfigured; and through that cloud of glory they would fain penetrate.  Perchance his eyes, as Stephen’s, had seen heaven open, when men had tried their torments.  At least, they had witnessed, when they followed the crowd, that his face, in contrast with theirs who tormented, shone, as it had been the face of an angel.  They had witnessed his testimony given in the heroic endurance of physical pain.  There was more to be learned than the crowd were fit to hear or could hear.  Broken strains of the Lord’s song they heard him singing through the torture.  Now they had come longing for the full burden of that divinest melody.

Jacqueline entered the room quietly, scarcely observed.  She sat down by the door, and it chanced to be near the mother of Leclerc, near Victor Le Roy.