in, and I know what befalls Christian
women and children among the unbelievers. Therefore I ask your
leave to say my say."

"Speak," said the abbess.

"This is my counsel," went on Rosamund, "and it is short and
plain. When we know that the Saracens are in the city, let us set
fire to this convent and get us to our knees and so perish."

"Well spoken; it is best," muttered several. But the abbess
answered with a sad smile:

"High counsel indeed, such as might be looked for from high
blood. Yet it may not be taken, since self-slaughter is a deadly
sin."

"I see little difference between it," said Rosamund, "and the
stretching out of our necks to the swords of friends. Yet,
although for others I cannot judge, for myself I do judge who am
bound by no final vows. I tell you that rather than fall into the
hands of the Paynims, I will dare that sin and leave them nothing
but the vile mould which once held the spirit of a woman."

And she laid her hand upon the dagger hilt that was hidden in her
robe.

Then again the abbess spoke.

"To you, daughter, I cannot forbid the deed, but to those who
have fully sworn to obey me I do forbid it, and to them I show
another if a more piteous way of escape from the last shame of
womanhood. Some of us are old and withered, and have naught to
fear but death, but others are still young and fair. To these I
say, when the end is nigh, let them take steel and score face and
bosom and seat themselves here in this chapel, red with their own
blood and made loathsome to the sight of man. Then will the end
come upon them quickly, and they will pass hence unstained to be
the brides of Heaven."

Now a great groan of horror went up from those miserable women,
who already saw themselves seated in stained robes, and hideous
to behold, there in the carved chairs of their choir, awaiting
death by the swords of furious and savage men, as in a day to
come their sisters of the Faith were to await it in the doomed
convent of the Virgins of St. Clare at Acre.*

[* Those who are curious to know the story of the end of those
holy heroines, the Virgins of St. Clare, I think in the year
1291, may read it in my book, "A Winter Pilgrimage," pp. 270 and
271--AUTHOR.]

Yet one by one, except the aged among them, they came up to the
abbess and swore that they would obey her in this as in
everything, while the abbess said that herself she would lead
them down that dreadful road of pain and mutilation. Ye