An hour later they returned. Katheline was still sitting there stiff and motionless. The clerk said:
“I think she is dead.”
The alderman commanded the torturer to remove Katheline from the coffin-lid, and to take off the shoes from her feet. This he could not do, so that he was forced to cut them, and Katheline’s feet were exposed to view, all red and bleeding. The alderman, whose thoughts were still with his dinner, gazed at her without a word. But after a while she came to her senses, and fell upon the ground, nor was she able to get up again in spite of many attempts. Then she said to the alderman:
“Once you desired me for your wife. But now you shall have none of me! Four times three is the sacred number, and my husband is the thirteenth.”
The alderman was going to answer her, but she forestalled him:
“Be silent. His hearing is more delicate than that of the archangel in heaven who counts the heart-beats of the just. Why are you so late? Four times three is the sacred number. He killeth those who hold me in desire.”
The alderman said:
“It seems she welcomes the devil to her bed!”
“The pains of the torture have turned her brain,” said the clerk.
So Katheline was taken back into prison. And three days later there was a meeting of the aldermen in the Council Hall; and after some deliberation Katheline was condemned to suffer the ordeal by fire.