'Hush, Lily! When the King sees what a weakling Sir James has brought
him, he will be but too glad to exchange Patie for me, and leave me safe
in these blessed walls.'

But here they were under the archway, and the convoy of armed men, whom
the exigencies of the time forced the convent to maintain, were already
mounted. Sir James stood ready to assist the lady to her saddle, and
with one long earnest embrace the brother and sister were parted, and
Lilias rode away with the Prior by her side, letting the tears flow
quietly down her cheeks in the darkness, and but half hearing the long
arguments by which good Father Akecliff was proving to her that the
decision was the best for both Malcolm and herself.

By and by the dawn began to appear, the air of the March night became
sharper, and in the distance the murmur and plash of the tide was heard.
Then, standing heavy and dark against the clear pale eastern sky, there
arose the dark mass of St. Ebba's monastery, the parent of Coldingham,
standing on the very verge of the cliff to which it has left the name of
St. Abb's Head, upon ground which has since been undermined by the waves,
and has been devoured by them. The sea, far below, calmly brightened
with the brightening sky, and reflected the morning stars in a lucid
track of light, strong enough to make the lights glisten red in the
convent windows. Lilias was expected, was a frequent guest, and had many
friends there, and as the sweet sound of the Lauds came from the chapel,
and while she dismounted in the court the concluding 'Amen' swelled and
died away, she, though no convent bird, felt herself in a safe home and
shelter under the wing of kind Abbess Annabel Drummond, and only mourned
that Malcolm, so much tenderer and more shrinking than herself, should be
driven into the unknown world that he dreaded so much more than she did.