“Nay, mistress, I would have you use that name more modestly,” said the Constable. But now in his eyes was a light that turned her cold.
Very gently the great thong was being shaken out. The long and cruel length was uncoiling itself like that of a serpent, so that now it lay crouching in wait among the rushes of the floor.
“I will not be beaten,” was all that Anne could gasp. “I am this day a woman.”
With a sudden chill of despair she knew that she was helpless. And if she had not known, in the very next instant that cruel fact would have been revealed to her. With a surprising dexterous swiftness for which she was not prepared, the slender wrist was twisted in a lock so cunning that to struggle would be to break the arm.
“As I am a Christian man it is my duty to cut away so damnable a heresy.” The sharp, hissing words came through shut teeth.
The defenceless form was held at arm’s length. In the implacable eyes of the Constable was the sinister fanaticism which is not afraid to wound itself.
CHAPTER V
“OH, mistress!”
A voice that had music in it sounded from the top of the high wall.
Anne had spent a dreadful night of pain and misery in one of the milder of the Castle dungeons. That is to say, it was above the ground. Also it was free of vermin, it was tolerably well lit, and was provided with a small inclosed yard open to the sky, but surrounded by a high wall garnished with spikes. Her first night of womanhood had been of a bitterness she had not thought it possible to know. There had only been a crust of bread, a jug of water and a bare pallet to assuage her tears. She had crept out of her cell in the darkness, and at last, quite exhausted, had fallen asleep under the April stars, with but a slab of icy stone to ease her hurts.