anwhile, as they had
arranged him, his dead hands crossed upon his bosom, his dead eyes
staring on the roof; and hard by, in the stall, the lad who had slain him
waited, in sore disquietude, the coming of the morning.

Once only, in the course of the hours, Sir Oliver leaned across to his
captive.

"Richard," he whispered, "my son, if ye mean me evil, I will certify, on
my soul's welfare, ye design upon an innocent man. Sinful in the eye of
Heaven I do declare myself; but sinful as against you I am not, neither
have been ever."

"My father," returned Dick, in the same tone of voice, "trust me, I
design nothing; but as for your innocence, I may not forget that ye
cleared yourself but lamely."

"A man may be innocently guilty," replied the priest. "He may be set
blindfolded upon a mission, ignorant of its true scope. So it was with
me. I did decoy your father to his death; but as Heaven sees us in this
sacred place, I knew not what I did."

"It may be," returned Dick. "But see what a strange web ye have woven,
that I should be, at this hour, at once your prisoner and your judge;
that ye should both threaten my days and deprecate my anger. Methinks,
if ye had been all your life a true man and good priest, ye would neither
thus fear nor thus detest me. And now to your prayers. I do obey you,
since needs must; but I will not be burthened with your company."

The priest uttered a sigh so heavy that it had almost touched the lad
into some sentiment of pity, and he bowed his head upon his hands like a
man borne down below a weight of care. He joined no longer in the
psalms; but Dick could hear the beads rattle through his fingers and the
prayers a-pattering between his teeth.

Yet a little, and the grey of the morning began to struggle through the
painted casements of the church, and to put to shame the glimmer of the
tapers. The light slowly broadened and brightened, and presently through
the south-eastern clerestories a flush of rosy sunlight flickered on the
walls. The storm was over; the great clouds had disburdened their snow
and fled farther on, and the new day was breaking on a merry winter
landscape sheathed in white.

A bustle of church officers followed; the bier was carried forth to the
deadhouse, and the stains of blood were cleansed from off the tiles, that
no such ill-omened spectacle should disgrace the marriage of Lord
Shoreby. At the same time, the very ecclesiastics who had been so
dismal