city ceased; the din of war and warriors' roar was hushed. The music of
the cricket, the whirr of the owlets, might easily have been heard, when
the holy Dame and the Palmer met. The Abbess had chosen a solemn hour,
to disclose a solemn secret.

"O holy Palmer!" she began,--"for surely he must be holy whose feet have
trod the ground made sacred by a Redeemer's tomb,--I come here in this
dread hour, for the dear sake of our Holy Church. Yet I must first
speak, in explanation of a worldly love." Here was related by unwilling
lips, the story of Constance's fall, of De Wilton's death or exile after
being proved a traitor, of Lady Clara's faithfulness to the memory of De
Wilton, and of her desire to enter the convent of the Abbess.

"'A purer heart, a lovelier maid,
Ne'er shelter'd her in Whitby's shade.'

"Yet, King Henry declares she shall be torn from us, and given to this
false Lord Marmion. I am helpless, a prisoner, with these innocent
maidens, and I fear we have been betrayed by Henry, that Clara may fall
into the hands of his favorite. I claim thine aid.

"'By every step that thou hast trod
To holy shrine and grotto dim,
By every saint and seraphim,
And by the Church of God!
For mark: When Wilton was betrayed,'

"it was by means of forged letters,--letters written by Constance de
Beverley, at the command of Marmion, and placed, by De Wilton's squire,
where they could be used against that noble knight.