The door shut behind him, grating and heavy. That it stood that way Aderhold found in the days that followed.... It drew toward assizes. Five days before the time he found himself one late afternoon, after a weary, weary hour of facing the commission, again in the long, dusky prison room where he had seen Joan. He knew now that it was a kind of antechamber, a place where prisoners were drawn together to wait occasions. More than once during these last days he had been kept here for minutes at a time, and sometimes others had been here and sometimes not. But Joan Heron never. One day he had seen Dorothy, and in passing had managed a moment’s word. “Dorothy, Dorothy! I am sorry—” Dorothy had gasped and shrunk aside. “Oh, wicked man! Oh, Master Aderhold—” He had seen also the youth with a clear passion for knowledge to whom he had lent books and talked of Copernicus and Galileo. This one had not been fearful of him. To-day he saw neither this youth nor Dorothy. But suddenly, as he stood waiting his gaoler’s leisure, he was aware of Joan Heron.... From somewhere came a red sunset light, and it followed and enwrapped her as she moved. She was moving with her arm in the grasp of a man of a curious and sinister look—moving by the wall at the end of the room—moving across, then back again, across again and back, across and back.... Aderhold drew near, and it was as though an iron hand closed hard upon and wrung his heart. Joan went very slowly, dragging her limbs, more haled by the man than moving of volition. Her form swayed, seemed as if all and only its desire was to sink together, fall upon the earth and lie there with time and motion ended in one stroke. Her head was sunken forward, her eyes closed. The man shook her savagely. “No sleeping!—When you are willing to tell your witch deeds, then you shall sleep!” “Joan! Joan!” cried Aderhold. He moved beside the two. The man looked at him but, stupid or curious, neither thrust him off nor dragged his charge away. It was but for a moment. Joan opened her eyes. “You?” she said. “All I want is to sleep, sleep—” Her face was ghastly, exhausted. Aderhold uttered a groan. “Do they not let you sleep either?” she said. “Five days, five nights—and I am thirsty, too.” He managed to touch her hand. “Joan, Joan—” She looked at him with lustreless eyes. “The others have all made up something to confess. But though I die, I will not. They may twist a cord around my head and I will not.” A spasm crossed her face. “Of their vileness they may set the witch-pricker on me and I will not.” Her voice, monotonous and low, died away. The man haled her by the arm, forcing her to walk. She reeled against him. “Sleep ... sleep. Oh, let me sleep!” A door opened. The man with her looked up, nodded, put his hands on both her shoulders and pushed her toward it. Her eyes closed again, her head sank forward. Together the two vanished, leaving to Aderhold a sense of midnight and the abyss. CHAPTER XX THE WITCH JUDGE