He was younger than any of the friars that St. Real had yet seen,--pale in countenance, heavy in expression, with a certain degree of sadness, if not wildness, in his eye, and that close shutting of the teeth and compression of the lips, which, in general, argues a determined disposition. A little above the middle height, he was powerful in limb and muscle; but the appearance of strength and activity, which his form would otherwise have displayed, was contradicted by a certain slouching stoop, which deprived his demeanour of all grace; while the habit of gazing, as it were, furtively from under the bent brows which almost concealed his eyes, gave his dull countenance a sinister expression, not at all prepossessing. "Benedicite!" said the friar, as he advanced towards St. Real; "benedicite!" St. Real made some ordinary answer in Latin; but the dull unreplying countenance of the monk showed that his stock of Latinity did not extend even to the common phrases in use amongst persons of his profession; and the young Marquis proceeded in French: "You are, I presume, the brother appointed to keep watch over us in our confinement?" "The Prior has given me, for a penance," replied the monk, "the task of lying in a down bed, and waiting your will in communicating with the parlour and the refectory, till to-morrow morning. I am commanded to ask you if you will have supper: it grows late." "I am here, father," replied St. Real, with a smile, "as a bird in a cage, and you must feed me at what hours you please: it matters but little to me." The monk gazed on him, for a moment, in sullen silence, as if he hardly attended to his reply, or hardly understood its meaning; and then, as his slow comprehension did its work, he turned away with a few muttered, half-intelligible words, and left the apartment, going apparently to command the meal of which he had spoken. It was soon after brought in; and, during its course, the Dominican sat by, turning over the leaves of his breviary in silence, from time to time reading a few sentences, and filling up the intervals in gazing vacantly upon the pages, seemingly occupied in dull and gloomy dreams.