“It is no concern of mine, sire,” he said, with a bluntness that was hardly courteous to the lady. A laugh hailed this frankness. De Montfort’s son was looking at Etoile. “Will it please you to command my courtesy?” he asked. Etoile smiled at him. He took her bridle, and they went riding together over London Bridge into London City. Nor did Simon guess that this was the first ride along a tortuous road that would lead him to bring death upon the great earl, his father. CHAPTER XXI Winter had come, and since Denise’s cell stood on the northern slope of Mountjoye Hill, it was bitter cold there, nor would the north wind be stopped by such things as a thorn hedge or a closed door. To Denise the cold was but part of the misery that was closing upon her, for people were hardier in those days, and less softened by the luxury of glass and carpets. But it was not the cold that kept her wakeful through the night, but the blank and unpitying face of the future that never departed from before her eyes. Denise knew the truth now, and soon the world might know it also. The Abbey folk had sent her no winter gear, but that was Dom Silvius’s affair, perhaps due to his meanness, or his discontent with her, or to the feeling that a recluse whose prayers went unanswered needed to be chastened by wind and frost. It seemed very far from that day in May when the meadows were sheeted in gold, and the singing boys sang her into the Abbey _leuga_. Denise would have had no winter clothes, had not a good woman who distrusted Dom Silvius, sent her a lamb’s-wool tunic, and a cloak lined with rabbit’s skin. So the winter deepened, and Denise saw always that shame that was coming nearer day by day. She knew now how utterly she had failed, and the reason thereof seemed in herself. Life had thrust hypocrisy upon her insidiously and by stealth. She would have fled from it, but the wide world seemed cold and empty, nor was she free to follow her own will. Reginald the Abbot was her lord now, both in the law and in the spirit, he could have her taken if she fled, condemned, whipped, and turned forth with contumely in the eyes of all. Denise had her woman’s pride, a pride that shrank from the thought of a public scourging and of open shame. Two weeks or more after Christmas, on a clear frosty morning, three women came to Denise’s cell, and one of these women was the smith’s wife, Bridget. They had loitered on the road awhile, talking volubly, priming one another for some enterprise. No one had come near Denise for a month or more, save the Abbey servant who left food at the cell, but never saw her face. So the three women came to Denise’s cell, and stood before the closed door, smirking and making a mystery of the event. They had christened each other “Warts,” “Sterility,” and “Thorn-in-the-Thumb,” and their business was to win a glimpse of Denise.