doing
so? He said he would attempt it.

When Alice returned on the following day from Marnell Place, whither she
had been to procure a change of linen for her mistress, she brought with
her also a loaf of bread. The jailer demurred at this, but Alice urged
that Lady Marnell did not like the bread made by the prison baker, and
surely the jailer would not grudge her a loaf from home, for the few
days she had to live. The jailer shook his head, but let it pass. When
Alice was safe in the cell, she broke the loaf, and produced from it,
cunningly imbedded in the soft crumb, several sheets of paper folded
surprisingly small, a pen, and a little inkhorn. Margery's eyes
glistened when she saw these, and she wrote her letter secretly during
the night. But how to get it out of the prison with safety? Alice was
able to provide for this also. The letter was sewn in one of the
pillows, which would be carried back to Marnell Place after the
execution.

The last day of Lady Marnell's life sped away as other less eventful
days do, and the evening of the 5th of March arrived. Alice, having
just returned from her usual journey to the house, was disposing of the
articles which she had brought with her, when the jailer's key grated in
the lock, and the door was opened. Lady Marnell looked up, expecting to
see her husband, though it was rather before his usual time for visiting
her; but on looking up, she saw Abbot Bilson.

This feline ecclesiastic came forward with bent head and joined hands,
vouchsafing no reply to Margery's salutation of "Good even, father," nor
to Alice's humble request for his blessing. He sat down on a chair, and
for some minutes stared at Margery in silence--conduct so strange that
at length she said, "Wherefore come you, father?"

"To look at thee, child of the devil!" was the civil answer.

Alice, who had just requested the blessing of the _priest_, was more
angry than she could bear with the _man_. She was just on the point of
saying something sharp, when Lord Marnell's voice behind the Abbot
interposed with--

"If thou wouldst see a child of the devil, I trow thou hast little need
to look further than thy mirror!"

The Abbot rose calmly, and let Lord Marnell enter.

"It becometh not poor and humble monks, servitors of God, to lend
themselves unto the vanity of mirrors," said he, pulling out a large
rosary, and beginning to tell his beads devoutly.

"`Servitors of God!'" cried Lord Marnell,