“On what charge? Who has informed against her?”
“I was not in the court when she was tried. I know very little. I was near the town, waiting about, and I got scraps of information from some of our people, and from Pedo, who went into the city.”
“Then you do know. Answer me truly. Tell me all.”
“I—I was in prison myself, but escaped through the aid of Pedo. I tarried in an old kiln. He advised that I should come on here, where he had friends. Dost thou know that Marcianus has been sentenced? He will win that glorious crown which I have lost. I—I, unworthy, I fled, when it might have been mine. Yet, God forgive me! I am not ungrateful to Pedo. Marcianus said I was a coward, and unfit for the Kingdom of God; that I should be excluded because I had turned back. God forgive me!”
Suddenly Perpetua laid hold of Baudillas by both arms, and so gripped him that the water oozed between her fingers and dropped on the floor.
“I adjure thee, by Him in whom we both believe, answer me truly, speak fully. Is my mother retained in prison till I am found?”
The deacon looked down nervously, uncomfortably, and shuffled from foot to foot.
“Understand,” said he, after a long silence, “all I learned is by hearsay. I really know nothing for certain.”
“I suffer more by your silence than were I to be told the truth, be the truth never so painful.”
“Have I not said it? The Lady Quincta is in prison.”