Then Alice Benden lifted her head and answered.
“I am thoroughly persuaded, by the great extremity that you have already showed me, that you are not of God, neither can your doings be godly; and I see that you seek mine utter destruction. Behold, I pray you, how lame I am of cold taken, and lack of food, in that painful prison wherein I have lain now these nine weary weeks, that I am not able to move without great pain.”
“You shall find us right different unto you, if you will but conform,” replied the Bishop, who, as John Bunyan has it, had “now all besugared his lips.”
“Find you as it list you, I will have none ado with you!” answered the prisoner sturdily.
But at that moment, trying to turn round, the pain was so acute that it brought the tears to her eyes, and a groan of anguish to her lips. The Bishop’s brows were compressed.
“Take her to West Gate,” he said hastily. “Let her be clean kept, and see a physician if she have need.”
The gaoler of West Gate was no brutal, selfish Perkins, but a man who used his prisoners humanely. Here Alice once again slept on a bed, was furnished with decent clean clothing and sufficient food. But such was the effect of her previous suffering, that after a short time, we are told, her skin peeled off as if she had been poisoned.
One trouble Alice had in her new prison—that she must now be deprived of Roger’s visits. She was not even able to let him know of the change. But Roger speedily discovered it, and it was only thanks to the indolence of Mr Perkins, who was warm in bed, and greatly indisposed to turn out of it, that he was not found out and seized on that occasion. Once more he had to search for his sister. No secret was made of the matter this time; and by a few cautious inquiries Roger discovered that she had been removed to West Gate. His hopes sprang up on hearing it, not only because, as he knew, she would suffer much less in the present, but also because he fondly trusted that it hinted at a possibility of release in the future. It was with a joyful heart that he carried the news home to Christabel, and found her Aunt Tabitha sitting with her.
“O Father, how delightsome!” cried Christie, clapping her hands. “Now if those ill men will only let dear Aunt Alice come home—”
“When the sky falleth, we may catch many larks,” said Tabitha, in her usual grim fashion. “Have you told him?”