her away.

"Look to the damsel," he condescended to say, with a glance at
Doucebelle and Bruno. "Oh, ha!--where is the priest that blessed this
wedding? I must have him."

"There was no priest," sobbed the Countess, lifting her head from her
husband's arm, where she had let it sink: "it was _per verba
depresenti_."

"That we will see," was the cool response of Sir Piers. "Take all the
priests, Sir Drew.--Now, my Lady!"

"Fare thee well, my jewel," said Earl Hubert, kissing the brow of the
Countess. "Poor little Magot!--farewell, too."

"Sir Hubert, my Lord, forgive me! I meant no ill."

"Forgive thee?" said the Earl, with a smile, and again kissing his
wife's brow. "I could not do otherwise, my Margaret.--Now, Sir Piers,
we are your prisoners."

"These little amenities being disposed of," sneered Sir Piers. "I
suppose women must cry over something:--kind, I should think, to give
them something to cry about.--March out the prisoners."

Father Nicholas had been discovered in his study, engaged in the deepest
meditation on a grammatical crux; and had received the news of his
arrest with a blank horror and amazement very laughable in the eyes of
Sir Piers. Master Aristoteles was pounding rhubarb with his sleeves
turned up, and required some convincing that he was not wanted
professionally. Father Warner was no where to be found. The three
priests were spared fetters in consideration of their sacred character:
both the Earls were heavily ironed. And so the armed band, with their
prisoners, marched away from the Castle.

The feelings of the prisoners were diverse. Father Nicholas was simply
astonished beyond any power of words to convey. Master Aristoteles was
convinced that the recent physical disturbances in the atmosphere were
more than enough to account for the whole affair. Earl Hubert felt sure
that his old enemy, the Bishop of Winchester, was at the bottom of it.
Earl Richard was disposed to think the same Father Bruno alone looked
upwards, and saw God.

But assuredly no one of them saw the moving cause in that tall, stern,
silent Jewish youth, and the last idea that ever entered the mind of
Richard de Clare was to associate this great grief of his life with the
boyish trick he had played on Delecresse two years before.

For the great grief of Richard's life this sorrow was. Through the
six-and-twenty years which remained of his mortal span, he never forgot
it, and he never forgave it.