and he
could almost have rejoiced in Garrod's reappearance that with disdain he
might have wounded the fellow incurably. Yet he had a feeling that
Garrod might have turned out proof against the worst weapons he knew how
to use, and the memory of the 'blighter's' self-confidence was
demoralizing to Michael's conception of superiority. The vision of a
world populated by hostile Garrods rose up, and some of the simplicity
of life vanished irredeemably, so that Michael took refuge in dreams of
his own fashioning, where in a feudal world the dreamer rode at the head
of mankind. Lying awake in the intense blackness of his cell, Michael
troubled himself once more with his identity, wishing that he knew more
about himself and his father, wishing that his mother were not growing
more remote every day, wondering whether Stella over in Germany was
encountering Garrods and praying hard with a sense of impotency in the
darkness. He tried to make up his mind to consult Dom Cuthbert, but the
lank, awkward monk, fond though he was of him, seemed unapproachable by
daylight, and the idea of consulting him, still more of confessing to
him, never crystallized.

These were still days bedewed with the approach of Autumn; milkwhite at
morn and at noon breathless with a silver intensity that yearned upwards
against an azure too ethereal, they floated sadly into night with humid,
intangible draperies of mist. These were days that forbade Michael to
walk afield, and that with haunting, autumnal birdsong held him in a
trance. He would find himself at the day's end conscious of nothing but
a remembrance of new stubble trodden mechanically with languors
attendant, and it was only by a great effort that he brought himself to
converse with the monks working among the harvest or for the Nativity of
the Blessed Virgin to pick heavy white chrysanthemums from the stony
garden of the Abbey.

Michael was the only guest staying in the Abbey on the vigil, and he sat
almost in the entrance of the quire between the drawn curtains, not very
much unlike the devout figure of some youthful donor in an old Italian
picture, sombre against the blazing Vespers beyond. Michael was always
hoping for a direct manifestation from above to reward the effort of
faith, although he continually reproved himself for this desire and
flouted his weakness. He used to gaze into the candles until they
actually did seem to burn with angelic eyes that made his heart leap in
expectati