“I bid you go,” repeated Christopher.
“And I’ll not obey,” she answered. “Do you remember what I promised Martin ere he died?”
“Martin dead! Is Martin, who saved your husband, dead?” exclaimed the Abbot, lifting his face and letting it fall again. “Happy Martin, to be dead.”
“I was not there, and I am not bound by your promises, Cicely.”
“But I am, and you and I are one. I vowed mercy to this man if he should fall into our power, and mercy he shall have.”
“Then you spare him to destroy us. The wheels go round quick in England, Wife.”
“So be it. What I vowed, I vowed. With God be the rest. He has watched us well heretofore, and I think,” she added, with one of her bursts of triumphant faith, “will do so to the end. Abbot Maldon, sinful, fallen Abbot Maldon, you are as you were made, and Martin, the saint, said that there is good in your heart, though you have shown none of it to me or mine. Now, look you; yonder is a wooden summer-house, thatched and warm. Get you there, and I’ll send you food and wine and new clothing by one who will not talk; also a pass to Lincoln. By to-morrow’s dawn you will be refreshed, and then you will find a good horse tied to yonder tree, and so away to sanctuary at Lincoln, and, if aught of ill befalls you afterwards, know it is not our doing, but that of some other enemy, or of God, with Whom I pray you make your peace. May He forgive you, as I do, Who knows all hearts, which I do not. Now, farewell. Nay, say nothing. There is nothing to be said. Come, Christopher, for this once you obey me, not I you.”
So they went, and the wretched man raised himself upon his hands and looked after them, but what passed in his heart at that moment none will ever learn.
Some months had gone by and Blossholme, with all the country round, was once more at peace. The tide of trouble had rolled away northward, whence came rumours of renewed rebellion. Abbot Maldon had been seen no more, and for a while it was believed that although he never took sanctuary at Lincoln, he had done a wiser thing and fled to Spain. Then Emlyn, who heard everything, got news that this was not so, but that he was foremost among those who stirred up sedition and war along the Scottish border.
“I can well believe it,” said Cicely. “The sow must to its wallowing in the mire. Nature made him a plotter, and he will follow his heart to the end.”