It was no longer doubtful whence these sounds proceeded; for, in consequence of the closeness of a hot August night, St. Real had left his window open; and he now distinctly perceived that the music issued from a spot in the monks' gallery, very nearly opposite. Springing out of bed as soon as the sounds had ceased, he advanced to the window, and looked out; but he could perceive nothing. The night was somewhat obscure, the moon by this time was down, and it was with difficulty that he distinguished the fretted stonework of the gallery from the rest of the dark mass that rose before him. He paused for a moment, to consider what all this could mean. Though a sincere Catholic, and habituated to make a marked distinction between the doctrines of the religion he professed and the absurdities, superstitions, and corruptions with which knaves and fools had endeavoured to disguise it, still the Reformation had disclosed too much, and the young noble was of too inquiring a disposition for him to be unaware of the multitude of tricks, intrigues, and deceptions, which some of the more bigoted members of the Roman church thought themselves justified in practising for the attainment of an end desired. The sounds he had just heard, therefore, he attributed at once to their right cause, looking upon them as part of some piece of monkish jugglery. Almost as rapidly joining this conclusion in his mind to his own arrest without the knowledge of Mayenne, to his detention in the Dominican convent, to his separation from the rest of the community, and to the peculiar position of the apartments assigned to him, he was led to believe--though wrongly--that he himself was the object of the somewhat absurd stratagem which he had just witnessed.