"That is a true gospel, brother," put in the friar. "The Abbot means to air his gallows at her expense; but there is worse than a gallows to it. What did I tell you of the Black Monks when you called 'em White? There is a coal-black among them who'll have her if the gallows have her not. It is Galors or gallows, fast and sure."
Prosper rubbed his chin, looked at the friar, looked at Matt, looked at Isoult. She neither lifted her head nor eyes, though the others had met him sturdily enough. She stood like a saint on a church porch; he thought her a desperate Magdalen.
"Isoult, come here," said he. She came as obediently as you please, and stood before him; but she would not look up until he said again, "Isoult, look me in the face." Then she did as she was told, and her eyes were unwinking and very wide open, full of dark. She parted her lips and sighed a little, shivering somewhat. It seemed to him as if she had been with the dead already and seen their kingdom. Prosper said, "Isoult is this true that thou wilt be hanged to-morrow?"
"Yes, lord," said Isoult in a whisper.
"Or worse?"
"Yes, lord," she said again, quivering.
"Save only thy lot be a marriage this night?"
"Yes, lord," she said a third time. So he asked,
"Art thou verily what this old man thy father hath testified against thee—a witch, a worker of iniquity and black things, and of abominations with the devil?"
Isoult said in a very still voice—"Men say that I am all this, my lord."