Henriet, perfectly satisfied, took up the heavy moulds and made his way to his lord’s chamber, where many things were used for purposes other than those for which they had been intended.

Upon the back of his departure came in the Precentor Renouf, who laid his baton conjointly and freely about the ears of his son and those of Laurence MacKim.

“Get to your beds both of you, and that supperless, for uproar and conduct ill becoming two youths who worship God all day in his sanctuary, and are maintained at grievous expense by our most devout and worthy lord, Messire Gilles of Laval and Retz, Seigneur and Lord!”

Laurence, who had of set purpose provoked the quarrel, was slinking away, when the “Psalta” (as the choir-master is called in lower Brittany) ordered them to sleep in separate rooms for the better keeping of the peace.

“And do you, Master Laurence, perform your vigil of the night upon the pavement of the chapel.  For you are the most rebellious and troublesome of all—­indeed, past bearing.  Go!  Not a word, sirrah!”

So, much rejoiced in heart that matters had thus fallen out, Laurence MacKim betook himself to the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, and was duly locked in by the irate precentor.

For, upon various occasions, he had watched the Lord of Retz descend into the chapel by a private staircase which opened out in an angle behind the altar.  He had also seen Poitou, his confidential body-servant, lock it after him with a small key of a yellow colour which he took from his fork pocket.

Now Master Laurence, as may have already been observed, was (like most of the youthful unordained clergy) little troubled, at least in minor matters, with scruples about such slight distinctions as those which divide meum and tuum.  He found no difficulty therefore in abstracting this key when Poitou was engaged in attending his master from the chapel, in which service it was his duty to pass the stalls with open lattice ends of carven work in which sat the elder choir-boys.  Having secured the key, Laurence hid it instantly beneath the leaden saint on his cap, refastening the long pin which kept our Lady of Luz in her place through the fretwork of the little brazen key.

Presently he saw Poitou come back and look carefully here and there upon the floor, but after a while, not finding anything, he went out again to search elsewhere.

The idea had come to Laurence that at the head of the stairway from the chapel was the prison chamber of Maud Lindesay and her ward, the little Maid Margaret of Galloway.

He told himself at least that this was his main object, and doubtless he had the matter in his mind.  But a far stronger motive was his curiosity and the magic influence of the mysterious and the unknown upon the heart of youth.

More than to deliver Margaret of Galloway, Laurence longed to look again upon the iron altar and to know the truth concerning the strange sacrifices which were consummated there.  And he yearned to see again that rough-eared image graven after the fashion of a man.