Now a rusty key grated, and after much tugging and panting from the other side, the door opened a little way and the scared head of a brown friar, such as one sees in the old countries, hooded and tonsured, peeped out.
"Mother of us all!" he cried fearfully, "and what—who art thou, then?"
"Only a woman, father," she said gently, for he was clearly ready to shut her back into the dark. "I am here by mistake. I only ask to be put on my way again, and I will not trouble your monastery."
For she had travelled much abroad and though she supposed herself to have entered through the cellar some church-school or cathedral establishment, of which there were not a few in her city, unconsciously she spoke of a monastery, as if she had met this holy brother in such a place.
"Monastery!" he repeated, but more assured now and opening the door wider, "why do you speak of that, my daughter? Who looks for a monastery on the Dunes?"
So simple and sincere he seemed that she could not doubt him and stared around her, to see herself in a rich, if small chapel, of rough stone, with coloured windows and a carved altar. The candles were but half alight; her cries had stopped this friar in his pious task, evidently. Holly was twined about among the carvings, and the effigy of a knight in full armour, his crossed feet upon a crouched hound, had candles on either side and the choicest berries and glossiest leaves upon his breastplate, but she did not stop to look at these but rushed to the only door she saw besides the one she had entered, the monk watching her curiously the while.
This door led to a narrow passage, that in turn to a broader, hung with rich tapestry, lighted with torches, set alternately with branching deer horns. This would never take her out, certainly, and she turned in confusion to the waiting friar.
"Is there no door to the street?" she said, impatiently.
"The street? The street," he repeated, "my daughter, what are you thinking of? Look through this pane and recollect your whereabouts."