(II)
It was in the Jerusalem chamber when the King was gone, a couple of hours later, that the new abbot of Westminster came up to him. He was a small, rosy man with very clear, beautiful eyes.
"Can you speak to me for five minutes, Monsignor?" he said.
The other glanced across at the Cardinals.
"Certainly, father abbot."
The two went out, down a little passage, and into a parlour. They sat down.
"It's about Dom Adrian," said the abbot abruptly.
Monsignor checked the sudden shock that ran through him. He knew he must show no emotion.
"It's terribly on my conscience," went on the other, with distress visibly growing as he spoke. "I feel I ought to have seen which way he was going. He was one of my novices, you know, before we were transferred. . . . He would have been here to-day if all had been well. He was to have been one of my monks. I suggested his name."
Monsignor Masterman began to deprecate the self-accusation of the other.