She spoke to Gaillard a long while, looking in his eyes as she spoke. At first Gaillard carried his head sulkily, but little pleased with what she said. Presently his eyes began to glitter, he protruded his chin, and once more his shoulders seemed ready to swagger. Before Etoile had ended she had made him her man, ready to skip to the tune she piped. “Splendour of God!” and he began to laugh. “That is a game after my own heart. In a year the King shall give us the best of his castles. What Fulk de Brauté did, I can do even better.” He sprang up, happy, vain, and audacious, not thinking to read into the deeps of Etoile’s eyes. “You are a great man, my Gaillard,” she said. “You and I shall make our fortunes without waiting for Peter’s pence.” Hardly three leagues away from these two worldlings the Church took cognizance of holier things, and sought to boast of a miracle at the hands of Denise. More than a month had passed since the Lady of Healing, as the folk called her, had knelt at midnight before the altar, and offered her body to the glory of God. Dom Silvius, dreaming his dreams, and chaffering over his ambitions, thought the time ripe for Denise to prove her sanctity. For a month she had been left in solitude to commune with the saints, save that an Abbey servant had daily brought her food and drink. The thoughts of all the people turned to the thorn hedge and the brown thatched cell that stood on the northern slope of Mountjoye Hill; and human nature being self-seeking, especially in its prayers, each soul had some hope of profiting by the miraculous hands of Denise. While Etoile and Gaillard rode together in the course of adventure, Dom Silvius came to Virgin’s Croft, and a servant with him bearing a young child in his arms. Several women followed devoutly at the almoner’s heels, keeping their distance because of Dom Silvius’s carefulness towards the sex. The child was said to be possessed by a devil, and when a fit took him he would fall down foaming, struggle awhile, and then lie like one dead. The devil had brought him to such a pass, that he seemed frailer and feebler after each seizure. The boy was the only son of his mother, the brawny wife of a still more brawny smith, and they had great hopes for the child now that Denise had come. Silvius had the child laid before her door. “A devil teareth him, Sister,” said he. “Your purity shall drive the devil out.” And they left the child with her, and went their way.