They would, from fear that, having refused to serve Satan, if they let her go she would betray their vile secrets. Only by killing her could they be certain of saving themselves, or at least having to abandon this well-concealed meeting-place with all its costly furnishings. They would have nothing to fear from her disappearance; for she was living alone under an assumed name. Her landlady would report in a few days' time to the police that she had gone off leaving her things behind, but that would lead only to her being listed with hundreds of other missing persons. She had cut herself off even from Barney, the one and only person who might have tried to trace her.

Short of a miracle, escape was impossible and, having so long since fallen from a state of grace, how could she hope for one? Either she must pronounce the ultimate blasphemy or die there.

Desperately she sought for some middle course: some plea or trick by which she might postpone the issue. Her mind whirled with visions: of the Saviour, whom she was ordered to deny, upon the Cross; of a picture of Hell she had been shown as a child, in which naked men and women were being thrust by demons with pitchforks into the roaring flames; of a little coloured plaster statue of the Virgin before which she had knelt for many hundred nights when saying her prayers; of the insolently splendid figure of the Great Ram, and his terrifying black imp, as they had stood only a few feet from the spot where she was crouching, no more than a week ago.

These swiftly changing images robbed her of all coherent thought. From the moment Abaddon had spoken the abjuration her mind had been racing with such speed that each fearful idea chased out its predecessor in a flash; but even so the seconds had been ticking by, and she heard the High Priest say in a low voice:

'Come; do as I have directed. Otherwise the Brotherhood will become impatient.'

At that instant yet another mental picture flashed into Mary's brain. It was the pale serene face of the Mother Superior at the Convent she had attended. The old lady's lips and her gentle tones sounded again in Mary's ears, 'Remember, child, the understanding and the mercy of our Lord Jesus is infinite.'

It was the key. He knew that she had come here not for her own gain or advantage, with greed, lust, or a craving to be given power over others, but only in the hope of bringing her husband's murderers to book; and that if it proved possible, she would take steps to wreck this evil community that vilified His name. Nothing she said, in this gateway to Hell, no oath she took to Satan, could be binding provided that in her heart she remained true to the Redeemer.