"Methinks thou comest from the Monastery hard by?" he questioned
smoothly. "Canst tell me if there be shelter there for a weary traveller
this night?"

"For a poor and weary traveller perchance there might be," answered the
boy, with a gleam in his eye not lost upon his interlocutor; "but it is
no house of entertainment for the rich and prosperous. Those are sent
onwards to the Benedictine Brothers, some two miles south from this.
Father Paul opens not his gates save to the sick, the sorrowful, the
needy. Shall I put you in the way of the other house, Sir? Methinks it
would suit you better than any place which calls Father Paul its head."

The gaze bent upon the boy was searching and distinctly hostile. As the
dialogue proceeded, the look of malevolence gradually deepened upon the
face of the stranger, till it might have made a timid heart quail.

"How then came John de Brocas to tarry there so long? For aught I know
he may be there yet. By what right is he a guest beneath this so
hospitable roof?"

"He was sick nigh to the death when he craved admittance," answered
Raymond briefly. "He --"

"He had aided and abetted the flight from his true masters of a servant
boy bound over to them lawfully and fast. If he thinks to deceive Peter
Sanghurst or if you do either, boy that you are, though with the
hardihood of a man and the recklessness of a fool -- you little know
with whom you have to deal. It was you -- you who broke into our house
-- I know not how, but some day I shall know -- and stole away with one