Silver Cross and Westforest and Montjoy. He saw as in a scroll that Montjoy would never wholly believe nor yet wholly disbelieve.
Richard Englefield cried again, “Ride at once, Montjoy! They will have burned ladder and ropes and cloaks and scarfs. But the door behind the rood—they have not had time there—”
“What is that? What?” cried the Abbot sharply. “Door behind rood?”
“Where was none, door was made between my cell and yonder villain monk’s! So you sent me for penance to Westforest, so it was done. Then a great rood, great and black, was set before it. Yea, you used Christ on the cross for mask! Dim was it in that cell—never had I light in that cell! Now I have light—now it burns! Aside she pushed salvation—in she stepped, mincing like a harlot, having taken sugar for her voice—”
Abbot Mark fairly shrieked with horror. “Oh, if we did not know that it is Sathanas himself that speaketh, not the poor man whom he hath laid in bonds! Door—door!” He summoned sub-prior.
“Reverend father, door truly was made, it being once plan to take the wall down wholly, making of two cells one and using it for an infirmary. Then it was found that the light was not good, and the plan was abandoned. Stone was set back in the opening, and true it is that a rood being about that time placed in each cell, it was fastened, in this man’s and in Brother Norbert’s, against that wall. Of all his story it is the only truth! In his madness he must have torn the rood aside and seen that once there was opening, though now stone-filled and mortared. After that what Sathanas saith to him God forbid that we should know or repeat!”
“Shall I believe?” whispered Montjoy. “Shall I not believe? O Isabel—O Lady near whom moveth Isabel—”
Richard Englefield towered. He stretched his arms, he raised his face. “O Christ, if thou be true—O Blissful One, Eternal Virgin, if thou be real—”
But summer sun shone on.