For here the company could not be picked as it had been at the trial, and the Abbot noted anxiously that among them the victims had many friends.

It was time the deed was done ere their smouldering love and pity flowed out into bloody tumult, he thought to himself.

So, advancing quickly, he stood in front of Emlyn and asked her in a low voice if she still refused to give up the secret of the jewels, seeing that there was yet time for him to command that they should die mercifully and not by the fire.
"Let the mistress judge, not the maid," answered Emlyn in a steady voice.
He turned and repeated the question to Cicely, who replied-- "Have I not told you--never.

Get you behind me, O evil man, and go, repent your sins ere it be too late." The Abbot stared at her, feeling that such constancy and courage were almost superhuman.

He had an acute, imaginative mind which could fancy himself in like case and what his state would be.