“A long time.... Nearly four weeks.”
“Is it my misery to have brought you here?”
“No,” said Joan, “cruelty and wrong brought me here.”
“You are charged with—”
“Yes. With witchcraft.”
The gaoler, returning, began furiously to grumble that he would have no speaking together, and urged Aderhold away. There was naught to do but to obey; he went, but at the door looked back. She was standing with her grey eyes and her sorrowful face set in scorn of this place and of the world. The door closed between them.
“No!” said the gaoler. “No questions, for I’ll not answer them. Say naught and pay naught!—Down this stair. You won’t be so well lodged.”
It mattered not greatly to Gilbert Aderhold how he was lodged. When the gaoler was gone and the grating key removed, and solitude with him in this dim place, he lay down upon the stone that made its flooring and hid his face. After a time, rising, he walked the dungeon where he was immured. He struck his shackled hands against the wall, pressed his forehead against the stone....
The hours passed, the day passed, another night passed; another dawn came, strengthening outside into burning day. The gaoler appeared for a moment morning and evening, then darkness and silence.... He thought that he must be yet nearer the great church than he had been in his first cell. He could hear the bells, and they clanged more loudly here.