ts."

"At least," she said, "you know very well that I must pay the tithe."

"What tithe?"

"Marry!" she replied. "It always has to be paid;--the tithe for our
nights together. You are lucky--I have to pay for us both."

"And to whom do you pay?" he asked.

"To brother Eustace," she replied. "You go on home, and let me go in and
discharge my debt. It is a great sin not to pay, and I am never at ease
in my mind when I owe him anything."

"It is too late to-night," said he, "he has gone to bed an hour ago."

"By my oath," said she, "I have been this year later than this. If one
wants to pay one can go in at any hour."

"Come along! come along!" he said. "One night makes no such great
matter."

So they returned home; both husband and wife vexed and displeased--the
wife because she was not allowed to pay her tithe, and the husband
because he had learned how he had been deceived, and was filled with
anger and thoughts of vengeance, rendered doubly bitter by the fact that
he did not dare to show his anger.

A little later they went to bed together, and the husband, who was
cunning enough, questioned his wife indirectly, and asked if the other
women of the town paid tithes as she did?

"By my faith they do," she replied. "What privilege should they have
more than me? There are sixteen to twenty of us who pay brother Eustace.
Ah, he is so devout. And he has so much patience. Brother Bartholomew
has as many or more, and amongst others my lady (*) is of the number.
Brother Jacques also has many; Brother Anthony also--there is not one of
them who has not a number."

(*) The wife of the Seigneur.

"St. John!" said the husband, "they do not do their work by halves. Now
I understand well that they are more holy than I thought them; and truly
I will invite them all to my house, one after the other, to feast them
and hear their good words. And since Brother Eustace receives your
tithes, he shall be the first. See that we have a good dinner to-morrow,
and I will bring him."

"Most willingly," she replied, "for then at all events I shall not have
to go to his chamber to pay him; he can receive it when he comes here."

"Well said," he replied; "give it him here;" but as you may imagine he
was on his guard, and instead of sleeping all night, thought over at his
leisure the plan he intended to carry out on the morrow.

The dinner arrived, and Brother Eustace, who did not know his host's
intentions stuffed a good mea