tifled her thrilling screams, and choked her cries for
mercy? Yours--yours; and now you prate to me of pity--you, the slayer of
the sleeping and the innocent!"

"'Tis false!" exclaimed the priest, in extremity of terror.

"False!" echoed Alan. "I had Sir Piers's own confession. He told me all.
You had designs upon Sir Piers, which his wife opposed; you hated her;
you were in the confidence of both--how did you keep that confidence? He
told me _how_, by awakening a spirit of jealousy and pride, that
o'ermastered all his better feelings. False! He told me of your hellish
machinations; your Jesuitical plots; your schemes. He was too weak, too
feeble an instrument to serve you. You left him, but not before _she_
had left him. False! ha, I have that shall instantly convict you. The
corpse is here, within this cell. Who brought it hither?"

The priest was silent: he seemed confounded by Alan's violence.

"I will answer that question," said Barbara. "It was brought hither by
that false priest. His agent, Balthazar, has betrayed him. It was
brought hither to prevent the discovery of Sir Luke Rookwood's
legitimacy. He meant to make his own terms about it. It has come hither
to proclaim his guilt--to be a fearful witness against him." Then,
turning to Checkley, she added, "You have called Heaven to witness your
innocence: you shall attest it by oath upon that body; and should aught
indicate your guilt, I will hang you as I would a dog, and clear off one
long score with justice. Do you shrink from this?"

"No," replied the priest, in a voice hollow and broken. "Bring me to the
body."

"Seize each an arm," said Barbara, addressing Zoroaster and the knight
of Malta, "and lead him to the corse."

"I will administer the oath," said Alan Rookwood, sternly.

"No, not you," stammered the priest.

"And wherefore not?" asked Alan. "If you are innocent, you need fear
nothing from her."

"I fear nothing from the _dead_," replied Checkley; "lead on."

We will now return to Sybil. She was alone with her victim. They were
near the mouth of the cell which had been Prior Cyprian's flinty
dormitory, and were almost involved in darkness. A broken stream of
light glanced through the pillars. Eleanor had not spoken. She suffered
herself to be dragged thither without resistance, scarcely conscious, it
would seem, of her danger. Sybil gazed upon her for some minutes with
sorrow and surprise. "She comprehends not her perilous situation,"
mu