Those few and perfunctory confessions to a courtly priest who knew nothing about him, and was sure not to be hard on a king’s cousin, now seemed to add to his guilt:  and, wandering down-stairs towards the chapel, he met a train of ecclesiastics slowly leaving it, having just been relieved by a bevy of monks from a neighbouring convent, who took up the chants where they had left them.

Looking up at them, he recognized Dr. Bennet’s bent head, and throwing himself before him on his knee, he gasped, ’O father, father! hear me!  Take me back!  Give me hope!’

‘What means this, my young lord?’ said Dr. Bennet, pausing, while his brethren passed on.  ‘Are you sick?’ he added, kindly, seeing the whiteness of Malcolm’s face, and his startled eye.

’Oh, no, no! only sick at heart at my own madness, and the doom on it!  O Sir, hear me!  Take my vow again! give me absolution once more to a true shrift.  Oh, if you will hear me, it shall be honest this time!  Only put me in the way again.’

The chaplain was sorely sad and weary.  He it was whose ministrations had chiefly comforted the dying King.  To him it had been the loss of a deeply-loved son and pupil, as well as of almost unbounded hopes for the welfare of the Church; and he had had likewise, in the freshness of his sorrow, to take the lead in the ecclesiastical ceremonies that ensued, so that both in body and mind he was well-nigh worn out, and longed for peace in which to face his own private sorrow; but the wild words and anguished looks of the young Scot showed him that his case was one for immediate hearing, and he drew the lad into the confessional, authoritatively calmed his agitation, and prepared to hear the outpouring of the boy’s self-reproach.

He heard it all—­sifting facts from fancies, and learning the early purpose, the terror at the cruel world, the longing for peace and shelter; the desire to smooth his sister’s way, which had led him to devote himself in heart to the cloister, though never permitted openly to pledge himself.  Then the discovery that the world was less thorny than he had expected; the allurement of royal favour and greatness; the charm of amusement, and activity in recovered health; the cowardly dread of scorn, leading him not merely into the secular life, but into the gradual dropping of piety and devotion; the actual share he had taken in forbidden diversions; his attempts at plunder; his ill-will to King Henry; and, above all, his persecution of Esclairmonde, which he now regarded as sacrilegious; and he even told how he lay under a half engagement to Countess Jaqueline to return alone to the Court, and bear his part in the forcible marriage she projected.

He told all, with no extenuation; nay, rather with such outbursts of opprobrium on himself, that Dr. Bennet could hardly understand of what positive evils he had been guilty; and he ended by entreating that the almoner would at once hear his vow to become a Benedictine monk, ere—­