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
dead-house, 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
dismally engaged all night began to put on morning faces, to do honour
to the merrier ceremony which was about to follow. And further to
announce the coming of the day, the pious of the town began to assemble
and fall to prayer before their favourite shrines, or wait their turn at
the confessionals.

Favoured by this stir, it was of course easily possible for any man to
avoid the vigilance of Sir Daniel's sentries at the door; and presently
Dick, looking about him wearily, caught the eye of no less a person than
Will Lawless, still in his monk's habit.

The outlaw, at the same moment, recognised his leader, and privily
signed to him with hand and eye.

Now, Dick was far from having forgiven the old rogue his most untimely
drunkenness, but he had no desire to involve him in his own predicament;
and he signalled back to him, as plain as he was able, to be gone.

Lawless, as though he had understood, disappea