ladyship. A great lady, my friend, and a young one, childless, it is
said, without heir of her own. Morgraunt may go to the Crown or Holy
Thorn and Gracedieu may divide it."

"She may marry again," put in Galors.

"She is twice a widow," the Abbot snapped him up, and gave his first
shock. "She is twice a widow, once against her will. She will never
marry again."

"Then, my father," said Galors, "we should be safe as against the
Crown, which the Countess probably loves as little as the rest of her
kind."

"The Countess Isabel," said the Abbot, speaking like an oracle, "is
not childless."

Galors understood.

"Do not misunderstand me in this, Brother Galors," said the Abbot. "We
will do the girl no unnecessary harm. We will slip her out of the
country if we can get any one to take her. Put it she shall be married
or hanged." Galors again thought that he understood. The Abbot went
on. "There shall be no burning, though that were deserved; not even
tumbril, though that were little harm to so hot a piece. There shall
be, indeed, that which the Countess believes to have been already-a
sally at dawn and a flitting. There will then be no harm done. The
tithing will be free of a sucking witch, and the heart of our
benefactress turned from the child of her sin (for such it was to
break troth to the earl, and sin she deems it) to the child of her