"You must now separate; the future depends upon your secrecy and discretion, as a discovery will ruin all, and we have not a moment to lose," said the abbot, who felt more dismay in his heart than at that moment he cared to communicate. "What a time to separate!" exclaimed Gray almost with anger. "You separate but to meet again," said the abbot imperatively, but in a low voice, lest there might be other eavesdroppers; "away to your hostelry, Sir Patrick, get horses, and make every arrangement for immediate flight. If you leave Bommel at midnight, by riding fast you may both reach the coast of Altena long before day-break, and there find a ship for Scotland." "Let us escape now; why delay a single hour?" "That may not be; your flight would be discovered, and the followers of the earl would be aided in a pursuit by those of De Lalain the Dyck Graf. The time to choose is when all are abed and asleep, or ought to be, and I will provide the order to pass you through the gates of the city. The doors of our residence are secured every night by Sir Alan Lauder, who keeps the keys with care, as if he were still in Thrave, and feared the thieves of Annandale. You know the window of Murielle's sleeping apartment?" "It overlooks the garden above an arbour." "Be within the arbour when this church bell strikes twelve; keep your horses in the street, and I myself, as far as an old man may, will aid your flight together. You will pass through the church by the postern, and then God speed ye to the sea! Till then, farewell, and my blessing on ye! Ah, well-a-day! all this toil, all this trouble, all this peril had been saved us, if--if----" "What, my Lord?" "The master of evil and of mischief had been but forgiven and restored to his place--but the time shall come," said the abbot, remembering his pet crotchet, as they hastily separated; "that blessed time shall come!" CHAPTER XXXVIII. A WEDDING NIGHT. "Their swords smote blunt upon our steel, And keen upon our buff; The coldest blooded man of us Had battering enough; 'Twas butt to butt, and point to point, And eager pike to pike; 'Twas foin and parry, give and take, As long as we could strike." Gray seemed to tread on air--he felt as one in a dream--but a dream to be realized--as he hurried through the streets of Bommel to his hostelry, to pack his mail (a portmanteau), to order his horse to be in readiness, and to procure one for Murielle; while his emotions of love for her, and gratitude to the abbot, left no room in his honest heart for exultation that he was about to outwit his enemies, and by bearing her away avenge the wrongs they had done him. While he is busy with the hosteller, his grooms, horses, and arrangements, let us return to one who was quite as busily taking measures to circumvent them--the inevitable Achanna.