“The door of the cell is always shut,” he said, “and never a word or a sound have we now from our lady. What is more, Father, the stuff we took there two days ago was still by the wicket when one of the lads went up this morning.” Grimbald looked thoughtful. “Have you tried the door?” he asked. “We durst not, thinking she might be in a vision or in prayer.” “Did you call to her?” “Not above asking her blessing, Father, and telling of the food, and news of you. And it was four days ago that her voice answered us, but since then we have heard no sound.” Grimbald stood up slowly on the bed, propping himself with his arms against the walls of the pit. “God helping me, I could sit a horse,” he said. “This must be looked to. Oswald, my son, you had a fat pony. Bring the beast here to-morrow, at dawn.” “It shall be done, Father.” And they departed with his blessing, but Grimbald was awake all that night, troubled lest any harm should have befallen Denise. “Devil!” thought he. “Oswald’s devil was one of good human kidney, or I have no sense of smell. Satan need not heat himself with galloping in these parts. We have enough of him in the flesh.” Meanwhile at Pevensey, Aymery of Goldspur had thrown the preaching part of himself aside, for that which Gaillard had thrust under his door had stung the manhood in him, and left the poison of a great fear in his blood. The hair was Denise’s hair; he could have sworn to that on the relics of the Cross. How had they come by it, here in Pevensey? Was Denise also a caged bird, and if not, what had happened in that beech wood, where the great trees built dark winding ways with the sweep of their mighty branches? Aymery’s thoughts plunged in amid those trees, grimly and passionately, yet with the sheen of a woman’s hair luring him on like the mystic light from the Holy Grael. Had evil befallen her because of him? What devil’s mockery might there be in the way the truth had been thrust into his ken! Had Gaillard any hand in it? And at the thought of Gaillard, Aymery twisted Denise’s hair about his wrists, and yearned to feel those hands of his leaping at the Gascon’s throat. God! What did it avail him to pretend that he feared for Denise as he would have feared for a sister? She was the ripe earth to him, the dawn of dawns, the freshness of June woods after rain. He could cover his eyes no longer as to what was in his heart.