not confess, O wretched and polluted man, thou guilty one who art full of uncleanness?” And the reader made answer unto him, saying, “Master, I have neither knowledge nor feeling about this matter, for my thoughts and mind are clean in respect thereof, and [no thought] concerning this woman hath ever entered my mind. But if thou wishest to hear that which hath never taken place [I will say that] I myself committed the offence”; and having spoken thus, the Bishop straightway removed the reader from his position. Then the reader drew nigh and entreated the Bishop, saying, “Master, since I have tripped up and fallen, give the command that the woman be given unto me to wife, for I am no longer a cleric, and she is not a virgin”; so the Bishop gave the woman to the reader to wife, because he thought that he was held by love of her, and that he could not cut the affair concerning her out of his thoughts.
And when the reader had received the woman from the Bishop, he placed her in a religious house for women, and he begged the woman who ministered unto the wants of the sisters to take great care of her straightway. Now a short time afterwards the day arrived wherein she must give birth to her child, but the poor creature was not able to bring it to the birth, and although she could hardly bear the cruel and violent pains of her birth-pangs which were bringing her to the house of the dead, her child did not come forth. And one, two, three days passed by until the seventh [day arrived], and by reason of her great and frequent sufferings the woman was nigh to come unto Sheol; and she neither ate, nor drank, nor slept, but she was crying out and saying, “Woe unto me, for I am dying, and I made an accusation of fatherhood against such and such a reader.” Now the women who were standing before her having heard these words made them known to her father, who, however, fearing lest he should be blamed severely because he had made an accusation of fatherhood against the reader, held his peace concerning the matter for another two days; and meanwhile the young woman neither gained relief from her sufferings nor died. Now therefore when the nuns could no longer bear the pain of her violent shrieks, they ran and told the Bishop, saying, “Such and such a woman hath for some days past been crying out and confessing that she made an accusation of fatherhood against the reader.” Then the Bishop sent deacons unto him with the message, “Pray thou that the woman who made an accusation against thee may have relief”; but the reader answered them never a word. Now he had not opened his door since the day on which the accusation had been made against him, but he entreated
