for never, never will you be a traitor, betray your Lord. We won’t talk longer to-night. You’re nearly exhausted again. I’ll put you to bed, child, and thank you for letting me shelter someone who wears a ring of the martyr color, and is going to suffer to the end for loyalty to Our Lord Who died for her--and me!” Miss Braithwaite had gone on at length, for Cicely was sitting erect, wide-eyed, her face changing as she listened, and Miss Braithwaite knew that she was winning her to great heroism. It was not the first time that Miriam Braithwaite had fought and won a like battle for the right. “Ah, don’t, don’t! I can’t!” Cicely cried, but she arose and threw herself on her knees before Miss Braithwaite, clasping her tight, shaking with sobs which brought no tears; broken, weak, yet with a dawning strength. Miss Braithwaite helped Cicely to her bed, brushed and plaited her abundant hair; it fell around the girl in red masses of glory. Then she put Cicely between fragrant sheets, switched off the strong lights, switched on a low reading lamp, its hooded screen turned toward herself, dark toward the bed, and began to read the story of the Passion from St. Matthew’s Gospel. “She cannot deny her Lord in the morning if she sleeps with this in her ears,” Miss Braithwaite thought, reading in her beautifully modulated voice the infinite pathos of those selfless hours. Cicely slept deeply, wakening but once, and then not to lie awake as Father Morley had foreseen her doing, but falling off again into the profound sleep of complete exhaustion. She arose in the morning steadier in nerves; the first poignancy of her agony laid for the moment, but sure to leap up again to tear at her. After a delicious breakfast in Miss Braithwaite’s pretty morning room, her hostess arose. “It will soon be eleven, Cicely dear. You are quite fit to go to Father Morley? I need not ask him to come here?” she said. “I could go there, but why does he want me?” asked Cicely. “I never ask why Father Morley wants me; I’m too grateful to be allowed to see him,” said Miss Braithwaite smiling. “He is the most saintly person I have ever known, and his father, a convert, once an Episcopalian clergyman, was a confessor of the Faith, who suffered for it. This saintly son was his reward, one of his rewards! I’ll write three tiny notes, Cicely, then we’ll go in my coupé to ask Father Morley himself, what he wants of brave Cis!” At half past ten Miss Braithwaite and Cis set forth, “not to risk keeping Father Morley waiting,” Miss Braithwaite said. “I’ll leave you here, and return for you,” she told Cis, stopping her car before the Jesuit house and school. “I have two people whom I ought to see this morning, if it is at all possible. I’ll be back here not later than noon, I hope. But wait for me; I won’t fail you. One never is able to make a positive engagement to the minute, when a car is involved in its keeping.” CHAPTER XV DECISION