“Ey mun now run an tell Mester Potts, so that hoo may be found wi’ him,” muttered Jennet, creeping away.

Just then Richard recovered his speech, but his words were faintly uttered, and with difficulty.

“Alizon,” he said, “I will not attempt to disguise my condition from you.  I am dying.  And my death will be attributed to you—­for evil-minded persons have persuaded the King that you have bewitched me, and he will believe the charge now.  Oh! if you would ease the pangs of death for me—­if you would console my latest moments—­leave me, and quit this place, before it be too late.”

“Oh!  Richard,” she cried distractedly; “you ask more than I can perform.  If you are indeed in such imminent danger, I will stay with you—­will die with you.”

“No! live for me—­live—­save yourself, Alizon,” implored the young man.  “Your danger is greater than mine.  A dreadful death awaits you at the stake!  Oh! mercy, mercy, heaven!  Spare her—­in pity spare her!—­Have we not suffered enough?  I can no more.  Farewell for ever, Alizon—­one kiss—­the last.”

And as their lips met, his strength utterly forsook him, and he fell backwards.

“One grave!” he murmured; “one grave, Alizon!”—­And so, without a groan, he expired.

Alizon neither screamed nor swooned, but remained in a state of stupefaction, gazing at the body.  As the moon fell upon the placid features, they looked as if locked in slumber.

There he lay—­the young, the brave, the beautiful, the loving, the beloved.  Fate had triumphed.  Death had done his work; but he had only performed half his task.

“One grave—­one grave—­it was his last wish—­it shall be so!” she cried, in frenzied tones, “I shall thus escape my enemies, and avoid the horrible and shameful death to which they would doom me.”

And she snatched the dagger from the ill-fated youth’s side.

“Now, fate, I defy thee!” she cried, with a fearful laugh.

One last look at that calm beautiful face—­one kiss of the cold lips, which can no more return the endearment—­and the dagger is pointed at her breast.

But she is withheld by an arm of iron, and the weapon falls from her grasp.  She looks up.  A tall figure, clothed in the mouldering habiliments of a Cistertian monk, stands beside her.  She knows the vestments at once, for she has seen them before, hanging up in the closet adjoining her mother’s chamber at Whalley Abbey—­and the features of the ghostly monk seem familiar to her.

“Raise not thy hand against thyself,” said the phantom, in a tone of awful reproof.  “It is the Fiend prompts thee to do it.  He would take advantage of thy misery to destroy thee.”

“I took thee for the Fiend,” replied Alizon, gazing at him with wonder rather than with terror.  “Who art thou?”

“The enemy of thy enemies, and therefore thy friend,” replied the monk.  “I would have saved thy lover if I could, but his destiny was not to be averted.  But, rest content, I will avenge him.”