“I think that your Abbot Mark and Prior Matthew are devils!” “No. They are not. They are honest men trying to assure and increase that which they hold to be their own. Human stuff, even as you and I!” “Human stuff! Well, I would choose another stuff if I might!” “No, you would not, poor Morgen Fay, by the chill Wander! You chose this. Well, will you, or will you not?” “I will not.” “You think that you will not. However, you will. If you do not you are lost.” “Lost to what?” “Well, to ease--to your own kind of command--finally perhaps to your life.” She said in a strangled voice. “As I came here to this house so will I walk on by day or by night and come to another town.” He turned quickly. “Try it!--or rather do not try it! You will find that you cannot.” The holly berries were red, the leaves glossy and barbed. She looked at the pale winter sky. “Is it sky? It seems to me a poor tent that we have struggled to get up--poor, mean, low, ragged. I would it might fall and kill us!” He smiled indulgently. “No, you do not so! Any day you could kill yourself. But you love life. Go to, now! Look at the curious dance of the time correctly! Mumming is no great sin. What! All the saints and higher than the saints were on the market-place stage last Middle Forest Fair. They talked and walked--even the Highest! Very good! It is but Miracle Play again, and truly for no ill ends--” Red holly berries, barbed leaves. He won her to stand and listen, though with heaving bosom and dark brows. Pale sky and voice of Wander and birds of winter in naked oak and beech. The ruined farm--and her house above the river and her garden turned against her. Father Edmund preaching at town cross against the wicked time and each remaining sin--and they had swept up her house and garden and drummed forth Ailsa and Tony, who were God knew where! And Montjoy nor any cared any longer! Barbed leaves and miserable world bent on injury! He won her to nod her head and then to break into reckless laughter. CHAPTER XI The monk Richard awoke, he knew not why. He woke widely, collectedly, his forces drawn to a point of expectation. “Awake, awake! Look!” seemed to echo in his soul that had suddenly grown quiet. When he had slept his cell was flooded by the moon. Still there was her silver light. He sat up. He was with absoluteness aware of a presence in the cell. Never before, in his pale visions, had he had this sense of startling, of reality,--not at Westforest, not here at Silver Cross. He knew that there was a being in his cell. Neither could he nor did he doubt it. A voice spoke to him, and it was golden-sweet and rich and wonderful. “Richard!” He turned himself. Light that was not moonlight, though it blended with the moonlight, and in it, _real_, the Blessed among women!