"Can you do nought for me, then?" he asked in hopeless accents. "Must I feel for ever as Herod the King felt, when he had destroyed the holy innocents? I am not worse than others--why should they torture me?" "Punishment must always follow sin." "Sin! Is it any sin to punish a heretic? Father Dolfin saith it is a shining merit, because they are God's enemies, and destroy men's souls. I have not sinned. It must be Satan that torments me thus; it can only be he, since he is the father of heretics, and they go straight to him. Can't you buy him off? I 'll give you any gold to get rid of those faces! Save me from them if you can!" "I cannot. I have no power in such a case as thine. Get thee to the priest and shrive thee, thou miserable sinner, for thy help must come from Heaven and not from earth." "The priest! _Shrive_ me for obeying the Bishop, and bringing doom upon the heretics! Nay, witch!--art thou so far gone down the black road that thou reckonest such good works to be sins?" And the sumner laughed bitterly. "It is thy confession of sin wherewith I deal," answered Haldane sternly. "It is thy conscience, not mine, whereon it lieth heavy. Who is it that goeth down the black road--the man that cannot rest for the haunting of dead faces, or the poor, harmless, old woman, that bade him seek peace from the Church of God?" "The Church would never set that matter right," said the sumner, half sullenly, as he rose to depart. "Then there is but one other hope for thee," said a clear low voice from some unseen place: "get thee to Him who is the very Head of the Church of God, and who died for thee and for all Christian men." The sumner crossed himself several times over, not waiting for the end of one performance before he began another. "Dame Mary, have mercy on us!" he cried; "was that an angel that spake?" "An evil spirit would scarcely have given such holy counsel," gravely responded Haldane. "Never expected to hear angels speak in a witch's hut!" said the astonished sumner. "Pray you, my Lord Angel--or my Lady Angela, if so be--for your holy intercession for a poor sinner." "Better shalt thou have," replied the voice, "if thou wilt humbly rest thy trust on Christ our Lord, and seek His intercession." "You see well," added Haldane, "that I am no evil thing, else would good spirits not visit me." The humbled sumner laid two silver pennies in her hand, and left the hut with some new ideas in his head. "Well, my dear, you've a brave heart!" said Haldane, when the sound of his footsteps had died away. "I marvel you dared speak. It is well he took you for an angel; but suppose he had not, and had come round the screen to see? When I told you the worst outlaw in the forest would not dare to look in on you, I was not speaking of _them_. They stick at nothing, commonly."