With all these hornets humming even in the midst of winter, some of the older burghers and the head men of the boroughs went secretly to speak with Dom Silvius, and to show him discreetly how matters stood. Such an open sore needed healing; it was an offence and an insult to St. Martin, and the saints. Old Oliver de Dengemare was their spokesman, a man with a wise eye and a sagacious nose. Dom Silvius kept an imperturbable countenance, and heard them out to the bitter end, though inwardly he was aflame with wrath and infinite vexation. “The jade, the impudent jade.” His brain beat out such imprecations while the old men talked. No sooner had they gone than he crept off to whisper it all to Reginald the Abbot. Now Reginald was a man of easy nature, bland, kindly, one who chose a suave word rather than a sour one. Silvius came to him, cringing yet venomous, slaver dropping from his mouth as he stuttered and spat his wrath. He took the thing as infamous towards himself; the greed, the self-love, and the ambition in him were tugging at the leashes. “Let them hound her out and spit upon her,” he said, driving the nails into the palms of his hands, the muscles straining in his pendulous throat. “Let them spit upon her.” Abbot Reginald placed the sponge of his placidity over Dom Silvius’s mouth. “Brother,” he cautioned him; “such things should not be spoken till the anger is out of one. A hot head at night calls for penitence in the morning.” He saw very clearly how matters were with Silvius, that the monk’s zeal had turned sour, and sickened him; and that he was mad that all his astuteness should have taken, in the eyes of his little world, the motley of the fool. “You are too hasty, my brother,” he said. “Does a man whose wife has lost her virtue, shout it from the house-tops? Come, my friend, let us consider.” But Silvius would not be appeased. The fanatical cat had spread its claws, a beast more cruel than any creature out of the woods. Reginald of Brecon watched him, as a fat man who had dined well might watch the petulant tantrums of a child. He took to turning the ring upon his finger, a trick habitual with him when he was deep in thought. “It is growing dark,” he said at last, glancing at the window. Then he rose and stood awhile before the fire. Silvius had ceased to spit and to declaim. “My cloak and hood, Brother Silvius. You will find them there in the recess.” The monk obeyed his lord. When he returned with the cloak, Reginald held up two fingers, and spoke one word:— “Peace.” There was not the glimmer of a star in the sky when two dim figures climbed Mountjoye Hill. A north wind was blowing and whistled coldly into Reginald’s sleeves. Dom Silvius jerked from side to side, looking restlessly into the darkness as though his blood were still hot and bitter in him despite the cold. Reginald understood the savage impatience that possessed his monk, for he bade him wait at the gate in the hedge, and went on alone to the cell.