."

"Tell me, was aught amiss in my mother's death?"

"Didst thou ever suspect it?"

"Yes, but I put the thought away, as though it came from Satan."

"Well, poor child, thou wilt know now, and God help thee to bear it
rightly."

Trembling and astonished, Wilfred followed the prior into an
adjoining cell, where, propped up by cushions, lay the attenuated
form of a dying man--the death sweat already on his brow, standing
thereon in beads--the limbs rigid as a recent convulsion had left
them.

Any one conversant in the signs which immediately precede death
could have told that he had but a short time to live. The good
monk, who was supporting him and breathing words of Christian hope
into his ears, left him as the prior and Wilfred entered.

The prior took the monk's place, and supported the head of the
penitent.

"Look," he said, as he raised him upon his arm, "Wilfred of
Aescendune, the son of thy late lord."

The poor wretch groaned--such a deep hollow groan.

"Canst thou forgive me?" he said.

"Forgive thee what?"

"Tell him all, my son, and ease thy burdened mind."

The thrall then spake, in words interrupted by gasps and sighs,
which we must needs omit as we piece his narrative together for the
benefit of our readers.

"It is five years since I fled thy father's face, fearing his
wrath, for I had slain his red deer and sold them for filthy lucre.
Woe is me! I had better have trusted to his mercy and borne my
fitting punishment; but, as Satan tempted me, I fled to the great
city, where men are crowded together thick as bees in swarming
time, to hide myself amongst many. There I was like to starve, and
none gave me to eat, when a Jew who saw my distress, took pity on
me and gave me shelter.

"His name was Abraham of Toledo, a city far off over the salt sea,
whence he had come to our English shores in the hope of gain; and
he was mighty in magic arts and in compounding of deadly drugs to
slay, or medicines to make alive. I became his servant, for I had
nought else to do, and I blew his forge when he mixed strange
metals, swept his chamber, mixed his medicines as ordered, and did
all an ignorant man might do at his master's bidding."

"The wretch! he should be burnt," said the prior, who, like most
Englishmen of his day, confounded all such researches with the
black art; "didst thou ever see the devil there?"

"I did, indeed!"--the prior started--"but it was a Norman fiend,
and his name Hugo of