At seven o’clock breathlessness came on him again, and he was compelled to sit up in bed, with his brother’s arm about him on one side, and a physician’s upon the other.  They blooded him again, to twelve ounces more, which I suppose took his last remnant of strength from him; for in spite of their remedies, he sank very rapidly; and about half-past eight lost all power of speech.  He kept his consciousness, however, moving his eyes and shewing that he understood what was said to him till ten o’clock; and then he became unconscious altogether.

At a little before noon, without a struggle or agony of any kind, His Sacred Majesty ceased to breathe.

Of all that followed, there is no need that I should write; for I remained in England only till after the funeral in Westminster Abbey—­which was very poorly done—­eight days later; and I left on the Sunday morning, for Dover, after being present first, for a remembrance, at the first mass celebrated publicly in England, with open doors, in the presence of the Sovereign, since over a hundred and thirty years.  I had audience with King James on the night before, when I went to take my leave of him; and he renewed to me the offer of the Viscounty, of which I think Mr. Chiffinch had spoken to him.  But I refused it as courteously as I could, telling him that I was for Rome and the cloister.

All the rest, however, is known by others better than by myself; and the events that followed.  His Majesty shewed himself as he had always been—­courageous, obstinate, well-intentioned and entirely without understanding.  He was profuse in his promises of religious equality; but slow to observe them.  He shewed ruthlessness where he should have shewn tenderness, and tenderness where he should have shewn ruthlessness.  So, once more, all our labours went for nothing; and William came in; and the Catholic cause vanished clean out of England until it shall please God to bring it back again.

So here I sit near sixty years old, a monk of the Order of Saint Benet, in my cell at St. Paul’s-Without-the-Walls.  I have been Novice Master three times; but I shall never be more than that; for governmental affairs and I have said farewell to one another a long while ago.  It was through my telling of my adventures to my Novices at recreation-time that the writing of them down came about; for my Lord Abbot heard of them, and put me under obedience to write them down.  He did this when he heard one of my Novices name me to another as Father Viscount!  I have written them, then, down all in full, leaving nothing out except the French affairs on which I was put under oath by His Majesty never to reveal anything:  I have left out not even the tale of my Cousin Dolly; for I hold that in such a love as was ours there is nothing that a monk need be ashamed of.  I will venture even further than that, and will say that I am a better monk than I should have been without it; and as one last piece of rashness I will say that amongst “those good things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” in that world which is beyond this (if I ever come at it by His Grace), will be, I think, the look on my Cousin Dolly’s face when I see her again.