“What would happen if I did, father?” “Madman’s whip and bread and water and a chain! Go to, Thomas, what is wrong?” Suspicion sat in his eyes. “That’s a new thought and one I like not! Were you among the reachers for flowers that grew by harlot house? Were you?” Thomas Bettany shook his head. “I’ve told you I wanted Cecily.” He rose from chair and desk. “Eh, father, also I would like a ship that sails and sails away--with me, and Cecily! Now let me be going, for I told Martin Adamson that I would come myself for his monies.” “Aye? Then go--and do you remember, Thomas, that you’re all the son I have, and that I have been good to you!” Thomas Bettany went afoot through Middle Forest. “‘All the son I have, and I have been good to you.’ ‘_All the life I have and I would not burn. All the life I have and I would not burn._’ That’s Morgen Fay in prison yonder.” The day was hot with a cloud drawing over. Hot and still with a green light. Folk in the street looked upward. “Rain coming!” Thomas Bettany meant to go to the house of the debtor. But there was no hurry. It was a long day. Long day and short day. “Prison day must be long day, O Saint John, long day! But short day, seeing that it pulleth and hasteth toward death day--Friday. And now it is Monday.” Fascination drew him by the town cross. They would not set stake and fagot till Thursday. “How doth it feel when the iron hoop goes round? How doth the heart strive and choke when the torch comes to the straw? I feel it in myself! Doth Somerville feel it in himself? Doth Montjoy?” Persons spoke to him in the market square. He was young and big and gay and well liked. He answered enough to the point, and went on; and now here was the prison, tall and black among ruinous, ancient, steep-roofed houses, set under the castle hill with tower and wall above, and over these and all that slate sky with greenish light. Deep archway and iron door and men lounging. He went by Morgen Fay alone in the dark, and he knew that what she had told to burgher and lord and churchman was true--he had seen it in a flash--and a terrible and wicked act had she done, meriting hell where she would burn forever! But then, Somerville, but then the Abbot and the Prior? Thomas Bettany, who had owned a young, clean, gay heart, perceived that the world had taken plague. He wandered. He would not go home, nor yet to the debtor’s house. Rain held off, but the sky was covered, the light green, the air still and hot. He went down to the river. The bridge,--there were pilgrims upon it, a double line of them, chanting, coming from Saint Leofric. To-morrow they would go to Silver Cross, and Holy Well would heal one at least, maybe two or three. It made no difference what the monk of Silver Cross had cried nor what Morgen Fay. Was healing then within one’s own mind and heart? Was there the Holy Well?