d be thankful
to its Giver.

After they had eaten, a message came to them from the Prioress, who
desired to see them in her chamber. Thither they went, rejoiced to find
that they were no longer prisoners but had liberty to come and go, and
found her seated in a tall chair, for she was too stiff to walk. Cicely
ran to her, knelt down and kissed her, and she laid her left hand upon
her head in blessing, for the right was cut with the chafing of the
reins.

"Surely, Cicely," she said, smiling, "it is I who should kneel to you,
were I in any state to do so. For now I have heard all the tale, and it
seems that we have a prophetess among us, one favoured with visions from
on high, which visions have been most marvellously fulfilled."

"That is so, Mother," she answered briefly, for this was a matter of
which she would never talk at length, either then or thereafter, "but
the fulfilment came through you."

"My daughter, I was but the minister, you were the chosen seer, still
let the holy business lie a while. Perhaps you will tell me of it
afterwards, and meantime the world and its affairs press us hard. Your
deliverance has been bought at no small cost, my daughter, for know that
yonder coarse and ungodly man, the King's Visitor, told me as we rode
that this Nunnery must be dissolved, its house and revenues seized, and
I and my sisters turned out to starve in our old age. Indeed, to bring
him here at all I was forced to petition that it might be so in a
writing that I signed. See, then, how great is my love for you, dear
Cicely."

"Mother," she answered, "it cannot be, it shall not be."

"Alas! child, how will you prevent it? These Visitors, and those who
commission them, are hungry folk. I hear they take the lands and goods
of poor religious such as we are, and if these are fortunate, give one
or two of them a little pittance to get bread. Once I had moneys of my
own, but I spent them to buy back the Valley Farm which the Abbot had
seized, and of late to satisfy his extortions," and she wept a little.

"Mother, listen. I have wealth hidden away, I know not where exactly,
but Emlyn knows. It is my very own, the Carfax jewels that came to me
from my mother. It was because of these that we were brought to the
stake, since the Abbot offered us life in return for them, and when it
was too late to save us, a more merciful death than that by fire. But I
forbade Emlyn to yield the secret; something in my heart told me to do