So they went in the midst of the armed men, the monks preceding, the nuns, with bowed heads, following after. Presently they entered the large hall, but on its threshold were ordered to pause while way was made for them. Cicely never forgot the sight of it as it appeared that day. The lofty, arched roof of rich chestnut-wood, set there hundreds of years before by hands that spared neither work nor timber, amongst the beams of which the bright light of morning played so clearly that she could see the spiders’ webs, and in one of them a sleepy autumn wasp caught fast. The mob of people gathered to watch her public trial--faces, many of them, that she had known from childhood. How they stared at her as she stood there by the head of the steps, her sleeping child held in her arms! They were a packed audience and had been prepared to condemn her--that she could see and hear, for did not some of them point and frown, and set up a cry of “Witch!” as they had been told to do? But it died away. The sight of her, the daughter of one of their great men and the widow of another, standing in her innocent beauty, the slumbering babe upon her breast, seemed to quell them, till the hardest faces grew pitiful--full of resentment, too, some of them, but not against her. Then the three judges on the bench behind the table, at which sat the monkish secretaries; the hard-faced, hook-nosed “Old Bishop” in his gorgeous robes and mitre, his crozier resting against the panelling behind him, peering about him with beady eyes. The sullen, heavy-jawed Prior, from some distant county, on his left, clad in a simple black gown with a girdle about his waist. And on the right Clement Maldon, Abbot of Blossholme and enemy of her house, suave, olive-faced, foreign-looking, his black, uneasy eyes observing all, his keen ears catching every word and murmur as he whispered something to the Bishop that caused him to smile grimly. Lastly, placed already in the roped space and guarded by a soldier, poor old Bridget, the half-witted, who was gabbling words to which no one paid any heed. The path was clear now, and they were ordered to walk on. Half-way up the hall something red attracted Cicely’s attention, and, glancing round, she saw that it was the beard of Thomas Bolle. Their eyes met, and his were full of fear. In an instant she understood that he dreaded lest he should be betrayed and given over to some awful doom. “Fear nothing,” she whispered as she passed, and he heard her, or perhaps Emlyn’s glance told him that he was safe. At least, a sign of relief broke from him. Now they had entered the roped space, and stood there. “Your name?” asked one of the secretaries, pointing to Cicely with the feather of his quill.