I will not believe him unfaithful to his truer self.

Who can judge, save God alone, of what is the most right thing to do in these dark and troublous days ?" She rose and donned a black gown, and shrouded herself in a long cloak, the hood of which concealed her face.

She was very pale, and there were rings around her eyes that told of weeping and of vigil.
Oh, how she had prayed for Anthony, that he might be pardoned wherein he might sin, strengthened wherein he was weak, purified and enlightened in the inner man, and taught by the Holy Spirit of God! As she walked through the streets by her father's side, and marked the gathering crowd thronging towards Carfax and the route to be taken by the procession, she seemed to hear the words beaten out by the tread of hurrying feet: "Faithful unto death--faithful unto death--unto death!" till she could have cried aloud in the strange turmoil of her spirit, "Faithful unto death--unto death!" There was a convenient window in the house of a kindly citizen, which had been put at her father's disposal.

When they took their places at it they saw the men already at work over the bonfire in the centre of the cross roads.

All the windows and the streets were thronged with curious spectators, and almost at once the tolling of the bells of various churches announced that the ceremony was about to begin.
The procession, it was whispered about, was to start from St.
Mary's Church, to march to Carfax, where certain ceremonies were to be performed, and then to proceed to St.Frideswyde, where a solemn Mass would be performed, to which the penitents would be admitted.
Then, with a solemn benediction, they would be dismissed to their own homes, and admitted to communion upon Easter Day.
Freda sat very still at the window, hearing little beside the heavy beating of her own heart and the monotonous tolling of the bells.
The crowd was silent, too, and almost all the people were habited in black, partly out of respect to the season of the Lord's passion, partly because this ceremony took the nature of a solemn humiliation.
Perhaps there were many standing in that close-packed crowd who knew themselves to have been as "guilty"-- if guilt there were--as those who were compelled to do penance that day.