“Come in, sir,” he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he sat. “Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason, Mr. Torridon.”
A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling piteously.
Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.
“Now, sir,” went on the other, “your only hope is to submit yourself to the King’s clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King’s Grace that?”
The monk’s eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see that he was desperately afraid.
“Tell me that, sir,” cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his open hand.
“I—I—what shall I do, sir?” stammered the monk.
“You must throw yourself on the King’s mercy, reverend father. And as a beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon’s here. Now, listen to this.”
Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and read it aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned entreated the King’s clemency for the fault and submitted himself entirely to his Grace’s judgment.
“I—I dare not accuse my superior,” stammered the monk.