There was silence. A red coal fell with a silken sound. Out of window all was white and still. “I despair,” said Morgen Fay. “Not for this danger nor for that but I—I myself. I despair.”
“If there were any way to buy Silver Cross—” He sat and looked into the fire.
The snow fell thick, thick and white. It hid the bridge, it hid Saint Leofric, it hid the castle of Montjoy. It wrapped the town. Dusk came to help it. Snow and night wrapped the time and place.
In the night it ceased to snow and cleared. Winter stars and purple dawn and saffron day. The sun sprang up and beneath him lay a diamond earth. Somerville, riding up Wander, pulled his hat over eyes, so dazzling were the light shafts.
Out from the road that turned aside to Silver Cross came upon his mule the Prior of Westforest, attended by two monks. There was greeting. “Ride on with me to Westforest, Sir Robert!”
They rode together and when they came to Westforest Somerville dismounted and went with Prior Matthew into his parlour.
CHAPTER X
Brother Anselm had been transferred, it seemed, from Westforest to Silver Cross. Richard Englefield found him here, and in the cell that had been Brother Oswald’s. The latter, with Brothers Peter, Allen and Timothy, were gone into dormitory. Only Brother Norbert was left. In the six cells dwelled Brother Anselm, Brother Norbert and himself. There had been other changes. A great rood was put up in his cell. Broad and dark, a poor wooden Christ hanging thereon, it overspread a third of one side of the cell. It stood there, shadowy against a shadowy wall, as all the cell was shadowy,—the thin winter light stealing in by day, the one taper by night.