t, or recked not; but I had seen them, I that love her. Oh, had I been
there, I had saved her, I had saved her. Idiot! idiot! to leave her for
a moment."

He wept bitterly a long time.

Then, suddenly bursting into rage again, he cried vehemently "The
Church! for whose sake I was driven from her; my malison be on the
Church! and the hypocrites that name it to my broken heart. Accursed be
the world! Ghysbrecht lives; Margaret dies. Thieves, murderers, harlots,
live for ever. Only angels die. Curse life! curse death! and whosoever
made them what they are!"

The friar did not hear these mad and wicked words; but only the yell of
rage with which they were flung after him.

It was as well. For, if he had heard them, he would have had his late
shipmate burned in the forum with as little hesitation as he would have
roasted a kid.

His old landlady who had accompanied Fra Colonna down the stair, heard
the raised voice, and returned in some anxiety.

She found Gerard putting on his clothes, and crying.

She remonstrated.

"What avails my lying here?" said he gloomily. "Can I find here that
which I seek?"

"Saints preserve us! Is he distraught again? What seek ye?"

"Oblivion."

"Oblivion, my little heart? Oh, but y'are young to talk so."

"Young or old, what else have I to live for?"

He put on his best clothes.

The good dame remonstrated. "My pretty Gerard, know that it is Tuesday,
not Sunday."

"Oh, Tuesday is it? I thought it had been Saturday."

"Nay, thou hast slept long. Thou never wearest thy brave clothes on
working days. Consider."

"What I did, when she lived, I did. Now I shall do whatever erst I did
not. The past is the past. There lies my hair, and with it my way of
life. I have served one Master as well as I could. You see my reward.
Now I'll serve another, and give him a fair trial too."

"Alas!" sighed the woman, turning pale, "what mean these dark words? and
what new master is this whose service thou wouldst try?"

"SATAN."

And with this horrible declaration on his lips the miserable creature
walked out with his cap and feather set jauntily on one side, and feeble
limbs, and a sinister face pale as ashes, and all drawn down as if by
age.

CHAPTER LXIII

A dark cloud fell on a noble mind.

His pure and unrivalled love for Margaret had been his polar star. It
was quenched, and he drifted on the gloomy sea of no hope.

Nor was he a prey to despair alone, but to exasperation at