The boy began to tell her about the old door he had broken down, and about the parchments; but just then the convent-bell clanged, Lady Katharine sprang to her feet, and saying hurriedly that the abbess would be there in a moment, went off down the walk, while Geoffrey as instantly retreated to his own cell. He found Hubert very anxious to know what was the matter, for he had heard the voices, but, faithful to his trust, he had remained watching the door, as his brother commanded. He was of course very much interested in the history of their fellow-prisoner, and delighted to hear that they had at least one friend, however helpless, in their prison. *CHAPTER XIV.* _*Remorse and its Effects.*_ Mother Superior of Our Lady’s Convent did not think it best to press an examination on her prisoners, or attempt any active measures for their conversion, until their hot heads had had time to cool in the damps of their dungeon, and their obstinacy had been overcome by hunger and solitude. She then hoped to find them quite willing to obtain their liberty by recantation, and to purchase her favor by the betrayal of their secrets; but she little knew the characters with which she had to deal. Boys who are thrown wholly on their own resources, and forced to act for themselves, in stirring and dangerous times, soon grow up to manhood in mind, if not in body. Geoffrey had been bred up in habits of self-denial, and inured to every kind of hardship, and was besides possessed of a disposition of that unyielding nature which, when guided by reason and exerted in a right direction, we call firmness, but when uncontrolled and directed to merely trifling things, we denominate obstinacy. His was a spirit which is as much strengthened by persecution as fire by oil; it only roused him to a fiercer action. He could meet defiance by defiance, and taunt with taunt; and Lollardism having been once assumed, there was little danger that it would be ever thrown aside, unless it might be weakened by a long course of prosperity.