be short."

"And ours is gone entirely--do you, Sir John de Bury, approve this rash
youth's sacrilege?"

"Aye, that I do," De Bury answered, his face set as stone.

"Are you both mad?" the Abbot exclaimed.

"Yea, that we are," replied De Lacy. "Mad with anger and resentment.
Can you guess why?"

The monk made no answer save a sneer.

"Listen, and you and your underlings shall hear: One evening a month or
so aback--your memory, good father, will serve you whether it was one,
or two, or three--a certain demoiselle styled Countess of Clare, Maid
to Her Majesty, the Queen of England, while near the Hermit's Cell in
the escort of Sir John de Bury, her uncle and guardian, was waylaid and
by force and violence seized upon and carried off. And though there
was hue and cry and searchings without rest, yet it was unavailing."

"Certes, we know all these matters," Aldam broke in angrily.

"Yes, you know them--and much more."

The Cistercian's face changed its expression not a whit.

"Are you aware, my lord Abbot, that the Duke of Buckingham has died
upon the block?" De Lacy questioned.

Aldam shrugged his shoulders. "It was scarce Stafford's death that
brought you to Kirkstall," he scoffed.

Aymer laughed derisively. "Think you so? Then are you mistaken
woefully. But for it I would be at Salisbury and your foul crime still
unsuspected."

"Now has patience run its limit!" the Abbot exclaimed. "Brothers of
Benedict! throw me these two godless ones without the gates." And
seizing the huge chair beside him, with strength astonishing in one so
slender, he whirled it high and brought it down at De Lacy's head.

But the Knight sprang lightly aside, and the heavy missile, tearing
itself by sheer weight from the priest's fingers, crashed upon the
pavement and broke asunder.

If there had been any possibility of help from his frightened flock it
was ended by this ill-timed blow. The Prior and his fellows on the
dais made not a single motion; and save for an excited swaying and
whispering, the monks sat stolid on their benches, either too
frightened to flee or too indifferent to the Abbot's safety to care to
aid him. For once had the habit of trembling obedience, yoked upon
them by years of stern domination, been loosed by the spirit of fear or
the hope of release.

And with a sneer of disgust on his face he surveyed them; and the scorn
in his voice must have shamed them to the floor had they been of the
bloo