cowardice, and make many tales to themselves to deceive themselves,
lest they should grow too much ashamed to live. And trust me if this
were not so, the world would not live, but would die, smothered by its
own stink. Is the wall betwixt us gone, friend?"

He smiled as he looked at me, kindly, but sadly and shamefast, and
shook his head.

Then in a while he said, "Now ye have seen the images of those who
were our friends, come and see the images of those who were once our
foes."

So he led the way through the side screen into the chancel aisle, and
there on the pavement lay the bodies of the foemen, their weapons
taken from them and they stripped of their armour, but not otherwise
of their clothes, and their faces mostly, but not all, covered. At
the east end of the aisle was another altar, covered with a rich cloth
beautifully figured, and on the wall over it was a deal of tabernacle
work, in the midmost niche of it an image painted and gilt of a gay
knight on horseback, cutting his own cloak in two with his sword to
give a cantle of it to a half-naked beggar. "Knowest thou any of these
men?" said I.

He said, "Some I should know, could I see their faces; but let them
be."

"Were they evil men?" said I.

"Yea," he said, "some two or three. But I will not tell thee of them;
let St. Martin, whose house this is, tell their story if he will. As