“Is that you, Brother Martin? I have come to speak with you as man to man, and to reason with you over your madness. That a priest should shed blood is very shameful, that he should shed it for the sake of a woman——”
“I am no longer a priest.”
“Listen awhile, good sir. My Lord of Troy is a devout gentleman. He would be willing to gloze over this midsummer madness, for the sake of St. Benedict, even to the point of sending you back to your cell—for discipline—and chastisement.”
“I ask nothing from my Lord of Troy.”
“You seem in a furious hurry to be hanged, Brother Martin. Listen a little further: I will put the matter with what grace I can, even though the thing is not as delicate as it should be. There is a certain young gentlewoman who is a prisoner in our hands. Is not that so?”
Martin set his teeth, and made no answer.
“Your silence is sufficient. Come now, let me tell you that this young gentlewoman is very loth to see you hanged, so loth that she is ready to offer that most inestimable thing—her virtue——”
He paused, looking up with an ironical grin at the loop in the wall.
“Consider this great sacrifice, Brother Martin, for though it is very flattering to myself——”
Martin’s face was as gray as the stone. He turned, and went silently down the ladder, and began to unfasten the rope that kept the footbridge raised.