A dead silence followed the reading of the dying confession of Guy, son of Roger.

The mighty Conqueror looked around, as if he would read men’s hearts.

Etienne de Malville was flushed, and seemed ready to sink into the earth for shame, as though he himself were responsible for the guilt of his father.

Wilfred of Aescendune, on the other hand, looked like one whose innocence was vindicated; there was an expression of joy on his face—­joy, however, so tempered by other feelings, that it could not be called exultation.

“It is a forgery—­a vile and shameful forgery,” cried Etienne.

“Thou didst thyself recognise the mark,” said the king sternly.  “We pardon thine excitement, but do not forget the presence of thine elders.”

“Can I sit thus tamely, and hear my dead father accused of the vilest crimes?”

“Justice shall be done his memory—­justice, neither more nor less,” said the Conqueror sternly.

“I claim, then, my privilege to meet the accuser in knightly combat.”

“The accuser is dead.  Wilt thou go to purgatory to meet him? for we trust his penitence has saved him from going farther and faring worse.  Keep silence, and do not further interrupt the course of justice.  We can pity thee, believing thee to be incapable of such deeds thyself.”

Then, turning to the court: 

“Is there any other evidence, verbal or written, bearing upon this question?”

“There is, my liege,” said Bishop Geoffrey.

“What is it?”

“A letter addressed to me by the murdered prior of St. Wilfred’s Priory, who perished in the flames on the fatal night of which we have heard so much.”

“Its date?”

“The night in Ascensiontide, three years agone, in which the prisoner left his stepfather’s protection and made a vain attempt to reach me at Oxenford, striving to bear the missive of which this is a copy.”

“And the original?”

“Fell into the possession of the late baron, his stepfather, after Eustace, Count of Blois, had borne the lad back again by force.”

“Hast thou satisfied thyself of the authenticity of the copy?”

“I have; it was attested by Prior Elphege himself, in the presence of the Benedictine from whom I received it.”

“Then read the letter.”

And amidst breathless attention, Geoffrey read: 

Elphege, prior of the house of St. Wilfred at Aescendune, to the noble prelate Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, now resident at Oxenford, sendeth greeting.

It will not have escaped thy remembrance, most holy father in God, that on the fatal field of Senlac—­fatal, that is, to my countrymen, for I am not ashamed to call myself an Englishman—­thou didst favourably notice a youth, who sought and found his father’s dead body, by name Wilfred, son of Edmund of Aescendune.

Nor wilt thou forget that thou didst intercede for the boy that he might retain his ancestral possessions, which boon thou didst only obtain at the cost of his widowed mother’s marriage with Hugo, Lord of Malville, outre mer.