There was afterwards found in her gown a paper which was taken possession of by me, being one of the clergy present, and here published by me that all the facts be known to all who care to read. As for Gilbert Farry, he came to the execution and stood close to the gallows, and when she was dead went westward, leaving his properties in his lodgings, nor was he ever seen or heard of again in Bedford. And his belongings were principally books in pagan languages and gaudy clothes, which were burnt before the Town Hall, for there was a great distrust of this man, it being thought that he had brought to ruin the soul of Grace Endicott. Here followeth the paper written by Mrs. Endicott the day before she died:– “Bedford Gaol, Wednesday, March 25th, 1679. “Powerful is evil and hard to escape, and wise are those who step aside from the world which is set with springes into one of which I fell, who was once a Chrisom child and spun Church linen at my father’s door. “When I was in my tender years I thought of neither good nor evil, but went my way in empty vanity; then, behold! I had a warning and beheld Hell in its flames and saw that Love was but the Devil and so let go his hand. “Soon there came a man, wonderful and strong, who took my soul from the embrace of Evil and set it on the road to Heaven and for six years I laboured in that thorny way, and thought I had found peace. “Yet was the Devil busy, and pursued me and set his hounds on my soul, and his traps for my feet, but the preacher bade me hold fast to him, and surely he was drawing me Heavenwards. Yet through weakness of body I denied him, and the Devil kissed me, and I was a damned soul, and the net was so tight about me I could not move, and being damned could not pray. “Yet I brooded still on Heaven and the Preacher, and conceived a great wrath against him who had wrung that denial from me, so having the seal of the Devil on me I slew my father and saw him die in the night. And being put on my trial cast spells till they thought me innocent. Yet I was presently weary of this, and did admit my master and to-morrow shall die and be returned to that Great Wickedness of which I am a part, yet once was a saved soul, grace to Master John Bunyan. “May He whose name I dare not write save others from what befell Grace Endicott.” Many who read this paper did say she was a mad woman, and many did say she was a witch, and Gilbert Farry the Devil himself, while others swore she was crazed with love for John Bunyan and was innocent and the old man died naturally (for, indeed, the doctors afterwards fell out about his having been poisoned), and yet others held she had lost her wits through the terror she had been in through denying her faith–and who shall make truth out of all this tangle? THE CUP OF CHICORY WATER “MADAME SE MEURT! MADAME EST MORTE!”