At first he buried his face in his hands in anxious thought, but soon started up, and began a careful examination of the walls and floor of his prison. His object was this. In the arrangements for flight at the hut on the cliff the preceding night, it will be remembered that the sheets of parchment containing parts of the Bible had been divided among the people. Geoffrey’s share he carried in a bag under the cloth jerkin that he wore, and he was afraid lest the prioress should undertake to search him, and so discover those precious pages, which he would then not only lose forever, but which would prove witnesses sufficient to send him, without further question, to the stake. He therefore wished to find some place where he might secrete them, if a search seemed probable. In the darkest corner of the room, partly concealed by a recess, he found a door, which had evidently, by the cobwebs gathered thickly over it, not been opened for a long time. Induced by the decayed appearance of the wood, he applied his shoulder to it, and one forcible push sent it bursting in, and nearly choked him with dust. At first his heart beat high, for he thought he had found a way of escape; but he was soon disappointed. It only opened into what seemed to have been an entrance or vestibule to the old cellar, for there were marks where some steps had been fastened into the wall; and a doorway, half-way up the side, had been built up with a different kind of stone. The walls were, however, much thinner, and the window larger. After making himself sure that there was no way to it except through the outer cell, he placed his parchments in a crevice under the window and returned to the other room, replacing the door so as to make all look as much as possible as it did before.