“As I am a Christian man it is my duty to cut away so damnable a heresy.” The sharp, hissing words came through shut teeth. The defenceless form was held at arm’s length. In the implacable eyes of the Constable was the sinister fanaticism which is not afraid to wound itself. CHAPTER V “OH, mistress!” A voice that had music in it sounded from the top of the high wall. Anne had spent a dreadful night of pain and misery in one of the milder of the Castle dungeons. That is to say, it was above the ground. Also it was free of vermin, it was tolerably well lit, and was provided with a small inclosed yard open to the sky, but surrounded by a high wall garnished with spikes. Her first night of womanhood had been of a bitterness she had not thought it possible to know. There had only been a crust of bread, a jug of water and a bare pallet to assuage her tears. She had crept out of her cell in the darkness, and at last, quite exhausted, had fallen asleep under the April stars, with but a slab of icy stone to ease her hurts. But now the dawn was come, and from far overhead a charming voice saluted her waking ears. She looked up. A fair head crowned with morning was thrust between the close-set spikes. A young man with the bravest eyes in the world was gazing down compassionately upon her. “Oh, mistress!” Almost involuntarily she drew the cloak which had been given her the closer about her aches. But it was not possible to conceal her pathetic, her terrible distress. “Oh, mistress!” For the third time the charming voice saluted her ears, not mockingly, not unkindly, not even curiously. In it was a gentleness, a subtle power of sympathy that, do as she would, started her tears anew. She drew the cloak closer about her shoulders, as if by so doing she could conceal the fact that she had been used very grievously. “You have been a-weeping, mistress.” It was idle to deny a fact so plain. Yesterday she would have met this boldness in a very different way. But that was past. In one long night of intolerable anguish her very nature had suffered a change. “For why do you weep, mistress?” Again was the voice like music. She could not forbear to look up into the dawn, which framed with its golden rose a fair head and a pair of brave, honest and gentle eyes. “Is it for a grievous fault? Nay, but I am sure it is not.” The tone was all kindness, all concern. Besides, there was some strange magic in it that had never sounded in her ears until that hour. “Never tell me, mistress, that you are to have your head cut off on Tuesday by order of the Queen.” The words were spoken in a manner almost whimsical. But as, startled and perhaps a little terrified, she gazed up to meet those eyes she suddenly saw that unutterable things lay behind their laughter.