After a time he slept again, but lightly, for the sun came in through
the deep, unshaded window and fell on his face and on the rushes that
covered the floor. And in his sleep the grimness was gone, and the
pride. And his mouth, which was sad, contended with the firmness of his
chin.

Clotilde went back to her bed and tucked her feet under her to warm
them. In the next room her nurse lay on a bed asleep, with her mouth
open; outside in the stone corridor a page slept on a skin, with a
corner over him against the draught.

She thought things over while she warmed her feet. It was clear that
singing did not soften all hearts. Perhaps she did not sing very well.
But the Bishop had said that after one had done a good act one might
pray with hope. She decided to do a good act and then to pray to see her
mother; she would pray also to become a boy so that her father might
care for her. But the Bishop considered it a little late for such a
prayer.

She made terms with the Almighty, sitting on her bed.

"I shall do a good act," she said, "on this the birthday of Thy Son, and
after that I shall ask for the thing Thou knowest of."

After much thinking, she decided to free the Jew. And being, after all,
her father's own child, she acted at once.

It was a matter of many cold stone steps and much fumbling with bars.
But Guillem the gaoler had crept up to the hall and lay sleeping by the