me go in peace. It may be when I return to
these doors you may have learned to think more kindly of me."

But the very calmness of these words only stung Nicholas to greater
fury. He had in full force that inherent belief, so deeply rooted
in the minds of many of the sons of Rome, that conviction as well
as submission could be compelled--could be driven into the minds
and consciences of recalcitrant sons and daughters by sheer force
and might. Gnashing his teeth in fury, he sprang once more upon his
son, winding his strong arms about him, and fairly lifting him from
the ground in his paroxysm of fury.

"Go! ay, we will see about that. Go, and carry your false stories
and falser thoughts out into the world, and pollute others as you
yourself have been polluted! we will think of that anon. Here thou
art safe in thy father's care, and it will be well to think further
ere we let so rabid a heretic stray from these walls. Wretched boy!
the devil himself must sure have entered into thee. But fiends have
been exorcised before now. It shall not be the fault of Nicholas
Trevlyn if this one be not quickly forced to take flight!"

All this while the infuriated man had been partly dragging, partly
carrying his son to a dreary empty room in the rear of the
dilapidated old house inhabited by Nicholas and his children. It
was a vault-like apartment, and the roof was upheld in the centre
by a stout pillar such as one sees in the crypts of churches, and
suspended round this pillar were a pair of manacles and a leather
belt. Cuthbert had many times been tied up to this pillar before,
his hands secured above his head in the manacles, and his body
firmly fastened to the pillar by the leather thong. Sometimes he
had been left many hours thus secured, till he had been ready to
drop with exhaustion. Sometimes he had been cruelly beaten by his
stern sire in punishment for some boyish prank or act of
disobedience. Even the gentle and timid Petronella had more than
once been fastened to the pillar for a time of penance, though the
manacles and the whip had been spared to her. The place was even
now full of terrors for her--a gruesome spot, always dim and dark,
always full of lurking horrors. Her eyes dilated with agony and
fear as she beheld her brother fastened up--not before his stout
doublet had been removed--and her knees almost gave way beneath her
as her father turned sharply upon her and said: "Where is the whip,
girl?"

It was sel