His face paled; then suddenly he asked—­

“Where are those jewels?  I need them.  Give me the jewels and you shall go free, and perchance your accursed mistress with you.”

“I told you,” she answered.  “Sir John took them to London, and if they were not found upon his body, then either he threw them away or Jeffrey Stokes carried them to wherever he has gone.  Drag the mere, search the forest, find Jeffrey and ask him.”

“You lie, woman.  When you and your mistress fled from Shefton a servant there saw you with the box that held those jewels in your hand.”

“True, my Lord Abbot, but it no longer held them; only my mistress’s love-letters, which she would not leave behind.”

“Then where is the box, and where are those letters?”

“We grew short of fuel in the siege, and burned both.  When a woman has her man she doesn’t want his letters.  Surely, Maldonado,” she added, with meaning, “you should know that it is not always wise to keep old letters.  What, I wonder, would you give for some that I have seen and that are not burned?”

“Accursed spawn of Satan,” hissed the Abbot, “how dare you flaunt me thus?  When Cicely was wed to Christopher she wore those very gems; I have it from those who saw her decked in them—­the necklace on her bosom, the priceless rosebud pearls hanging from her ears.”

“Oho! oho!” said Emlyn; “so you own that she was wed, the pure soul whom but now you called a wanton.  Look you, Sir Abbot, we will fence no more.  She wore the jewels.  Jeffrey took nothing hence save your death-warrant.”

“Then where are they?” he asked, striking his fist upon the table.

“Where?  Why, where you’ll never follow them—­gone up to heaven in the fire.  Thinking we might be robbed, I hid them behind a secret panel in her chamber, purposing to return for them later.  Go, rake out the ashes; you might find a cracked diamond or two, but not the pearls; they fly in fire.  There, that’s the truth at last, and much good may it do to you.”

The Abbot groaned.  Like most Spaniards he was emotional, and could not help it; his bitterness burst from his heart.

Emlyn laughed at him.

“See how the wise and mighty of this world overshoot themselves,” she said.  “Clement Maldonado, I have known you for some twenty years, and when I was called the Beauty of Blossholme, and the Abbot who went before you made me the Church’s ward, though I ever hated you, who hunted down my father, you had softer words for me than those you name me by to-day.  Well, I have watched you rise and I shall watch you fall, and I know your heart and its desires.  Money is what you lust for and must have, for otherwise how will you gain your end?  It was the jewels that you needed, not the Shefton lands, which are worth little now-a-days, and will soon be worth less.  Why, one of those pink pearls placed among the Jews would buy three parishes, with