avelled much abroad and though she supposed herself to
have entered through the cellar some church-school or cathedral
establishment, of which there were not a few in her city, unconsciously
she spoke of a monastery, as if she had met this holy brother in such a
place.

"Monastery!" he repeated, but more assured now and opening the door
wider, "why do you speak of that, my daughter? Who looks for a monastery
on the Dunes?"

So simple and sincere he seemed that she could not doubt him and stared
around her, to see herself in a rich, if small chapel, of rough stone,
with coloured windows and a carved altar. The candles were but half
alight; her cries had stopped this friar in his pious task, evidently.
Holly was twined about among the carvings, and the effigy of a knight in
full armour, his crossed feet upon a crouched hound, had candles on
either side and the choicest berries and glossiest leaves upon his
breastplate, but she did not stop to look at these but rushed to the
only door she saw besides the one she had entered, the monk watching her
curiously the while.

This door led to a narrow passage, that in turn to a broader, hung with
rich tapestry, lighted with torches, set alternately with branching deer
horns. This would never take her out, certainly, and she turned in
confusion to the waiting friar.

"Is there no door to the street?" she said, impatiently.

He stared curiously at her.

"The street? The street," he repeated, "my daughter, what are you
thinking of? Look through this pane and recollect your whereabouts."

He pointed to an empty pane among the coloured pieces of the window
through which, now and then, the wind blew powdery snow. She put her
eyes to it and looked out upon a great bare moorland, white under a cold
winter moon. Here and there sprang a fir tree, but for the most part the
land stretched away to the horizon, empty as death--and as chill. So
close to her eye that she must hold her head back in order to see it,
rose a great square tower with stretches of tiled roof, mostly
snow-covered, spreading out below it; this chapel was the end of the
building, it was plain.

Now a strange, uncertain doubt fell over her, and forgetting the terrors
of the dark cellar and the long vaults, she turned to the little door
again.

"Open that," she said, "and I will try my luck at getting back. For I
have come farther than I knew, it seems."

The friar crossed himself. "Back!" he cried, "back throug