There was no thought of Roger’s leaving the retreat he had found in his hour of need.  He scarce dared put foot outside the quiet cloistered quadrangle behind whose gates and walls he alone felt safe.  Besides, his father lay slowly dying in the hospital hard by.  It seemed as though the very joy of having his son restored to him had been too much for his enfeebled frame after the long strain of grief that had gone before.  The process of decay might be slow, but it was sure, and all knew that the old man would ere long die.  He had no desire for life, if only his boy were safe; and to Raymond he presented a pathetic petition that he would guard and cherish him, and save him from that terrible possession which had well-nigh been his ruin body and soul.

To Raymond it seemed indeed as if this soul had been given him, and he passed his word with a solemnity that brought great comfort to the dying man.

An incident which had occurred shortly before had added to Raymond’s sense of responsibility with regard to Roger, and had shown him likewise that a new peril menaced his own path in life, though of personal danger the courageous boy thought little.

One day, some six weeks after his admission to the Monastery, and shortly before John’s departure thence, Roger had been strangely uneasy and depressed for many hours.  It was no return of the trance-like state in which he was not master of his own words and actions.  Those attacks had almost ceased, and he had been rapidly gaining in strength in consequence.  This depression and restless uneasiness was something new and strange.  Raymond did not know what it might forebode, but he tried to dissipate it by cheerful talk, and Roger did his best to fight against it, though without much success.

“Some evil presence is near!” he exclaimed suddenly; “I know it —­ I feel it!  I ever felt this sick shuddering when those wicked men approached me.  Methinks that one of them must even now be nigh at hand.  Can they take me hence?  Do I indeed belong to them?  O save me —­ help me!  Give me not up to their power!”

His agitation became so violent, that it was a relief to Raymond that Father Paul at this moment appeared; and as this phase in Roger’s state was something new, and did not partake of the nature of any spiritual possession, he dismissed Raymond with a smile, bidding him go out for one of the brief wanderings in the woods that were at once pleasant and necessary for him, whilst he himself remained beside Roger, soothing his nameless terrors and assuring him that no power in the land, not even that of the King himself, would be strong enough to force from the keeping of the Church any person who had sought Sanctuary beneath her shadow.