The reproaches which he addressed to her were bitter and stern, though they seem to have been spoken in a tone of sorrow rather than of anger. "I am sure," he said, "I have ever been to you a faithful and devoted husband. I do not know what more you could have desired than I have done. I have loved you with a sincere and true affection. I have honored you. I have placed you in the highest positions, intrusting you repeatedly with large shares of my own sovereign power. I have confided in you--committing my most essential and vital interests to your charge. And now this is the return. You employ the very position, and power, and means which your confiding husband has put into your hands, to betray him in the most cruel way, and to aid and encourage his worst and most dangerous enemy."
To these reproaches Matilda attempted no reply, except to plead the irresistible impetuosity and strength of her maternal love. "I could not bear," she said, "to leave Robert in distress and suffering while I had any possible means of relieving him. He is my child. I think of him all the time. I love him more than my life. I solemnly declare to you, that if he were now dead, and I could restore him to life by dying for him, I would most gladly do it. How, then, do you suppose that I could possibly live here in abundance and luxury, while he was wandering homeless, in destitution and want, and not try to relieve him? Whether it is right or wrong for me to feel so, I do not know; but this I know, I _must_ feel so: I can not help it. He is our first-born son; I can not abandon him."
William went away from the presence of Matilda full of resentment and anger. Of course he could do nothing in respect to her but reproach her, but he determined that the unlucky Sampson should suffer severely for the crime. He sent orders to the castle where he lay immured, requiring that his eyes should be put out. Matilda, however, discovered the danger which threatened her messenger in time to send him warning. He contrived to make his escape, and fled to a certain monastery which was under Matilda's special patronage and charge. A monastery was, in those days, a sanctuary into which the arm even of the most despotic authority scarcely dared to intrude in pursuit of its victim. To make the safety doubly sure, the abbot proposed that the trembling fugitive should join their order and become a monk. Sampson was willing to do any thing to save his life. The operation of putting out the eyes was very generally fatal, so that he considered his life at stake. He was, accordingly, shaven and shorn, and clothed in the monastic garb. He assumed the vows of the order, and entered, with his brother monks, upon the course of fastings, penances, and prayers which pertained to his new vocation; and William left him to pursue it in peace.