to draw me down into itself, as it drags a rotting leaf.  I was buried before death, as it were, even if the wolves found me not and gave me other sepulture; and now and again I heard their long hunting cry, and at every patter of a beast’s foot, or shivering of the branches, I thought my hour was come—­and I unconfessed!  The road was still as death, no man passing by it.  This night to me was like the night of a man laid living in the tomb.  By no twisting and turning could I loosen the rope that Brother Thomas had bound me in, with a hand well taught by cruel practice.  At last the rain in my face grew like a water-torture, always dropping, and I half turned my face and pressed it to the ground.

Whether I slept by whiles, or waked all night, I know not, but certainly I dreamed, seeing with shut eyes faces that came and went, shifting from beauty such as I had never yet beheld, to visages more and more hideous and sinful, ending at last in the worst—­the fell countenance of Noiroufle.  Then I woke wholly to myself, in terror, to find that he was not there, and now came to me some of that ease which had been born of the strange, sweet voice, and the strange words, “Mes Freres de Paradis.”

“My brethren of Paradise”; who could she be that rode so late in company of armed men, and yet spoke of such great kinsfolk?  That it might be the holy Colette, then, as now, so famous in France for her miracles, and good deeds, and her austerities, was a thought that arose in me.  But the holy Sister, as I had heard, never mounted a horse in her many wanderings, she being a villein’s daughter, but was carried in a litter, or fared in a chariot; nor did she go in company with armed men, for who would dare to lay hands on her?  Moreover, the voice that I had heard was that of a very young girl, and the holy Sister Colette was now entered into the vale of years.  So my questioning found no answer.

And now I heard light feet, as of some beast stirring and scratching in the trees overhead, and there with a light jingling noise.  Was it a squirrel?  Whatever it was, it raced about the tree, coming nearer and going further away, till it fell with a weight on my breast, and, shivering with cold, all strained like a harp-string as I was, I could have screamed, but for the gag in my mouth.  The thing crawled up my body, and I saw two red eyes fixed on mine, and deemed it had been a wild cat, such as lives in our corries of the north—­a fell beast if brought to bay, but otherwise not hurtful to man.

There the red eyes looked on me, and I on them, till I grew giddy with gazing, and half turned my head with a stifled sob.  Then there came a sharp cry which I knew well enough, and the beast leaped up and nestled under my breast, for this so dreadful thing was no worse than the violer woman’s jackanapes, that had slipped its chain, or, rather, had drawn it out of her hand, for now I plainly heard the light chain jingle.  This put me on wondering whether