``What Master Calvin says is true. How can we have a good city unless we respect morality?''

Abel Poupin, a tall man with sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes, got to his feet. ``We all know that Jake Camaret and the woman are brazenly living together. It would be well to show the populace how we deal with adulterers.''

Philibert Berthelier, the son of the famous patriot, disagreed. ``Do not listen to that Frenchman. He is throttling the liberty my father gave his life to win!''

John was quietly insistent. ``There can be no compromise when souls are in jeopardy.''

A week later the sentence of the Council was carried out: Jake Camaret and the woman were marched naked through the streets past a mocking populace. Before them stalked the beadle, proclaiming as he went, ``Thus the Council deals with those who break its laws -- adulterers, thieves, murderers, and lewd persons. Let evildoers contemplate their ways, and let every man beware!''

John's thoughts raced painfully into the past as he read the letter he had just received from his sister Mary. Charles had died two weeks before, in early November, without being reconciled to the Church. The canons, in a body, had tried to force him on his deathbed to let them give him the last rites of the Church, but he had died still proclaiming salvation by faith. Burial had taken place at night in the ground at the public crossroads under the gibbet, so that his enemies could not find his body and have it dug up and burned. The Abbot of St. Eloi, Claude de Mommor, had been a good friend, but not even he thought Charles deserved burial in hallowed ground.