“My dearest brother,” said the Knight, “it grieves me deeply I cannot abide with you; but it would sound ill for us both were one of the reformed congregation to sit down at your admission feast; and, if I can ever have the satisfaction of affording you effectual protection, it will be much owing to my remaining unsuspected of countenancing or approving your religious rites and ceremonies. It will demand whatever consideration I can acquire among my own friends, to shelter the bold man, who, contrary to law and the edicts of parliament, has dared to take up the office of Abbot of Saint Mary's.”
“Trouble not yourself with the task, my brother,” replied Father Ambrosius. “I would lay down my dearest blood to know that you defended the church for the church's sake; but, while you remain unhappily her enemy, I would not that you endangered your own safety, or diminished your own comforts, for the sake of my individual protection.--But who comes hither to disturb the few minutes of fraternal communication which our evil fate allows us?”
The door of the apartment opened as the Abbot spoke, and Dame Magdalen entered.
“Who is this woman?” said Sir Halbert Glendinning, somewhat sternly, “and what does she want?”
“That you know me not,” said the matron, “signifies little; I come by your own order, to give my free consent that the stripling, Roland Graeme, return to your service; and, having said so, I cumber you no longer with my presence. Peace be with you!” She turned to go away, but was stopped by inquiries of Sir Halbert Glendinning.
“Who are you?--what are you?--and why do you not await to make me answer?”
“I was,” she replied, “while yet I belonged to the world, a matron of no vulgar name; now I am Magdalen, a poor pilgrimer, for the sake of Holy Kirk.”
“Yea,” said Sir Halbert, “art thou a Catholic? I thought my dame said that Roland Graeme came of reformed kin.'
“His father,” said the matron, “was a heretic, or rather one who regarded neither orthodoxy or heresy--neither the temple of the church or of antichrist. I, too, for the sins of the times make sinners, have seemed to conform to your unhallowed rites--but I had my dispensation and my absolution.”
“You see, brother,” said Sir Halbert, with a smile of meaning towards his brother, “that we accuse you not altogether without grounds of mental equivocation.”