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.

And the reason was not far to seek.

For if even the worship of the High God, according to the practice o