In the meantime life in that cell was a horror of which it is well not to think. She was supposed now to be under the gentle ministrations of the Church, but she was still a captive, shorn, degraded, hopeless, lacerated by fetters, and weighed down by heavy chains; for even at night when she lay on her bed her feet were in irons, with couples fastened to a chain, and attached by a log to a great beam of wood. Cauchon had been given to understand that the English would not be content with "perpetual imprisonment on bread of anguish and water of affliction" for this captive. The girl must burn, but now this could not be done unless she relapsed. Relapse she must, willingly or unwillingly. A word to John Grey's varlets would help matters, and the word was given. It was on Thursday, May twenty-fourth, that Jeanne recanted, and took the woman's dress. On Sunday following she awoke to find that her feminine attire had been taken from her while she slept, and on her bed lay the old page's suit of black. "Sirs," she said protestingly in her gentle voice, "this dress is forbidden me. Give me the woman's dress, I pray you." The guards refused, laughing. Jeanne knew what the end would be now, but she accepted her fate calmly. The tidings flew that by this act she had revoked her abjuration. Monday word was sent to Cauchon and his acolytes, who flocked at once to the castle. They found the girl overborne with grief, her face tear-stained and disfigured; the hearts of some of them were moved to compassion. "Why have you done this?" demanded Cauchon. "It is more suitable for me to wear it, being among men," said the Maid, taking the blame of the whole matter. "I have resumed it because the promise to me has not been kept; that is to say, that I should go to mass and should receive my Saviour, and that I should be taken out of irons." "Did you not promise and swear not to resume the dress of a man?" "No; I am not aware that I took any such oath. I would rather die than be in irons. But if you will release me from these irons, and let me go to mass, and lie in gentle prison, I will be good and do as the Church desires." "Since last Thursday have you heard your Voices?" asked the Bishop, wishing to find some basis for the charge of "relapse." "Yes;" Jeanne's sad face brightened at once. "What did they say to you?" "God made known to me by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret the great pity there was for the treason to which I consented by making revocation and abjuration in order to save my life. I have condemned myself that my life might be saved. On Thursday my Voices told me to answer that preacher boldly, and he was a false preacher, who preached. He accused me of many things that I never did. If I said that God did not send me, I should condemn myself, for God did send me. My Voices have told me that I committed sin in declaring that what I had done was wrong. All that I said and revoked, I said for fear of the fire."