"Gaze, my son," said he, "at the emblem of Him who died that thou mightest live, and say, 'O my God, I put Thy most pitiful passion between Thee and my sins!'"
"Yes, father, hearken," said Edward.
"I bethink me now that Gunhilda clung to the crucifix, and said she was a Christian. But what of that? She was a Dane, and they did right in dragging her from it and slaying her."
"My son, my son, you throw away your salvation!" cried the bishop.
"Father, show him the viaticum," said Emma.
"It is useless; without repentance and faith 'twould but increase--" and the prelate paused. "Let us pray. It is all we can do."
And all present knelt round the bed, while the plaintive cry arose from the lips of the prelate, and was echoed from all around:
"Kyrie eleeson: Christe eleeson: kyrie eleeson."
And so the litany for the dying rolled solemnly along, with its intense burning words of supplication, its deep agony of prayer, its loving earnestness of intercession. But upon the dying sinner's ears it fell as an echo of the long, long past; of that day when the litany arose before his coronation at Kingston, and the prophetic curse of Dunstan.
"Listen!" he said. "I hear the voice of Dunstan.