ld
would not live, and probably the mother would not live. As for Emlyn, as
she deserved, she would be burned for a witch, ere long too, now that
he had time to see to it, and, if she survived her sickness, although he
grieved for her, Cicely, her accomplice, should justly accompany her to
the stake. Meanwhile, as Mother Matilda's message told him, this matter
of the child was urgent.

The Abbot called a monk who was waiting on him and bade him send word
to a woman known as Goody Megges, bidding her come at once. Within ten
minutes she entered, having, as she explained, been warned to be close
at hand.

This Goody Megges, who had some local repute as a "wise woman," was a
person of about fifty years of age, remarkable for her enormous size, a
flat face with small oblong eyes and a little, twisted mouth, which had
caused her to be nicknamed "the Flounder." She greeted the Abbot with
much reverence, curtseying till he thought she would fall backwards, and
having received his fatherly blessing, sank into a chair, that seemed to
vanish beneath her bulk.

"You will wonder why I summon you here, friend, since this is no place
for the services of those of your trade," began the Abbot, with a smile.

"Oh, no, my Lord," answered the woman; "I've heard it is to wait upon
Sir Christopher Harflete's wife in her trouble."

"I wish that I could call her by the honoured name of wife," said the
Abbot, with a sigh. "But a mock-marriage does not make a wife, Mistress
Megges, and, alas! the poor babe, if ever it should be born, will be but
a bastard, marked from its birth with the brand of shame."

Now, the Flounder, who was no fool, began to take her cue.

"It is sad, very sad, your Holiness--no, that's wrong; but never mind,
it will be right before all's done, and a good omen, I say, coming so
sudden and chancy--your Lordship, I mean--not but what there's lots
of the sort about here, as is generally the case round a--I mean
everywhere. Moreover, they generally grow up bad and ungrateful, as I
know well from my own three--not but what, of course, I was married
fast enough. Well, what I was going to say was, that when things is so,
sometimes it is a true blessing if the little innocents should go off at
the first, and so be spared the finger of shame and the sniff of scorn,"
and she paused.

"Yes, Mistress Megges, or at least in such a case it is not for us to
rail at the decree of Heaven--provided, of course, that the infant has