Then the people were allowed to leave. Some of them must needs follow the judges, riding in stately grandeur down the street to the tavern for dinner. But the greater part of them followed the prisoner’s cart to the very door of the jail. As Deliverance stepped from the cart, she saw a familiar figure near by. It was that of Goodwife Higgins. “Deliverance, oh, Deliverance,” cried the poor woman, “speak to me, my bairn!” But Deliverance looked at her with woe-begone eyes, answering never a word. The goodwife, regardless of the angry warnings of the guard to stand back, pushed her way to her foster-child’s side. Deliverance was as one stricken dumb. Only she raised her face, and the goodwife bent and kissed the little maid’s parched lips. A soldier wrested them violently apart. “Are ye gone daft, gossip,” he cried harshly, “that ye would buss a witch?” Of the many that had packed the meeting-house to the full that morning, but one person now remained in it. This was Master Wentworth, the simpler, honoured for his pure and blameless life as well as for his great skill. All that summer noontide he knelt and prayed, unmindful of the heat, the buzzing flies, the garish light streaming through the window. He, knowing that the hearts of men were hardened to his cause, had carried his grief to a higher Tribunal. When the jailer had turned the key in the door and locked her in, a certain peace came to Deliverance. The abhorred prison-cell now seemed sweet to her. No longer was it a prison, but a refuge from the stern faces, the judges, and the young minister. Never had the lavender-scented sheets of her little hooded bed at home seemed half so sweet as did now the pile of straw in the corner. Once more the chain was fastened around her ankle. But the clanking of this chain was music to her compared to the voices that had condemned her. The sunlight came in the window with a green and golden glory through the leaves of the gnarled old apple tree.