"Prone on her face the Abbess fell,
And fast, and fast, her beads did tell;
She mark'd not, at the scene aghast,
What time, or how, the Palmer pass'd."

The following day, Marmion and the brave Douglas journeyed to fair
Tantallon. The Palmer still was with the band, as Angus commanded that
no one should roam at large. A wondrous change had come to the holy
Palmer. He freely spoke of war; he looked so high, and rode so fast,
that old Hubert said he never saw but one who could sit so proud, and
rein so well.

A half hour's march behind, came Fitz-Eustace, escorting the Abbess, the
fair Lady Clare, and all the nuns.

Marmion had sought no audience, fearing to increase Clara's hatred. He
preferred to wait until she was removed from the convent and in her
uncle's care. He hoped then, with the influence of her kinsman and her
King, to gain her consent to be the Lady Marmion. He longed to command,

"O'er luckless Clara's ample land,"

yet he hated himself when he thought of the meanness to which he stooped
for conquest, when he remembered his own lost honor; for,

"If e'er he lov'd, 'twas her alone,
Who died within that vault of stone."

Near Berwick town they came upon a venerable convent pile, and halted at