This poor man promised, but intended not to perform it.  Howbeit, when he deferred it, she provided the axe herself.  And he appointed with her the morning when he should come and do it, and thereupon into her house he came.  But then set he such other folk as he wished should know of her mad fancy, in such place appointed as they might well hear her and him talk together.  And after he had talked with her so much as he thought was enough, he made her lie down, and took up the axe in his own hand.  And with the other hand he felt the edge, and found a fault that it was not sharp, and that therefore he would in no wise do it, till he had ground it sharp.  He could not otherwise, he said, for pity, it would put her to so much pain.  And so, full sore against her will, for that time she kept her head still.  But because she would no more suffer any more to deceive her and put her off with delays, ere it was very long thereafter, she hung herself with her own hands.

Vincent:  Forsooth, here was a tragical story, whereof I never heard the like.

Anthony:  Forsooth, the party who told it to me swore that he knew it for a truth.  And he is, I promise you, such as I reckon for right honest and of substantial truth.

Now, here she forbore not, as shameful an intent as she had, to make someone of her counsel—­and yet, I remember, another too, whom she trusted with the money that should procure her canonization.  And here I believe that her temptation came not of fear but of high malice and pride.  And then was she so glad in that pleasant device that, as I told you, she took it for no tribulation.  And therefore comforting of her could have no place.  But if men should give her anything toward her help, it must have been, as I told you, good counsel.

And therefore, as I said, this kind of temptation to a man’s own destruction, which requireth counsel, and is outside tribulation, was outside of our matter, which is to treat of comfort in tribulation.

XVI

But lest you might reject both these examples, thinking they were but feigned tales, I shall put you in remembrance of one which I reckon you yourself have read in the Conferences of Cassian.  And if you have not, there you may soon find it.  For I myself have half forgotten the thing, it is so long since I read it.

But thus much I remember:  He telleth there of one who was many days a very special holy man in his living, and, among the other virtuous monks and anchorites that lived there in the wilderness, was marvellously much esteemed.  Yet some were not all out of fear lest his revelations (of which he told many himself) would prove illusions of the devil.  And so it proved afterwards indeed, for the man was by the devil’s subtle suggestions brought into such a high spiritual pride that in conclusion the devil brought him to that horrible point that he made him go kill himself.