"Canst thou bear to see him?"
"I can; it is the will of Heaven."
"Then he shall see thee in the church; the sacred house of God will restrain you both. Enter the confessional; he shall seek thee there."
Then the Abbot sought Brian.
"Come with me and I will show thee him thou seekest."
Brian was faint with exhaustion, but the dire need, the terrible expectation of some awful secret, held him up. He had had no food that day, but he recked not.
The Abbot Alured led him into the church.
The confessional was a stone cell[30] in the thickness of the wall, entered by the priest from a side chapel. The penitent approached from the opposite side of the wall from the nave of the church.
"I am not come to make a confession—yes I am, though, yet not an ordinary one."