The week ended, as all weeks come to an end. Lanfranc had gone to Canterbury. The Conqueror, assured by trusty reporters of the death of Wilfred, rejoiced that so satisfactory an accident had befallen, sparing all publicity and shame to one he could but admire, as he ever admired pluck and devotion.
Geoffrey alone remained a guest at a monastic foundation hard by St. Frideswide's.
The midnight bell has struck twelve--or, rather, has been struck twelve times by the sexton, in the absence of machinery.
All is silence and gloom in the church of St. Frideswide, and upon the burial ground around.
Three muffled figures stand in a recess of the cloisters.
"This is the door," said the sexton; "but, holy St. Frideswide, to go down there tonight!"
"Thou forgettest I am a bishop; I can lay spirits if they arise."
The sexton stood at the open door--a group of the bishop's retainers farther off--that iron door which never opened to inmate before.
Geoffrey and the Jew advanced to the grave, amidst stone coffins and recesses in the walls, where the dead lay, much as in the catacombs.
They stopped before a certain recess.