honer; perhaps it may
be something good, after all." The next moment the book was open, and
Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth
century, with the arms of Canon Alberic de Mauleon stamped in gold on
the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in
the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an
illuminated manuscript. Such a collection Dennistoun had hardly dreamed
of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis,
illustrated with pictures, which could not be later than 700 A.D.
Further on was a complete set of pictures from a psalter, of English
execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could
produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial
writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at
once, must belong to some very early unknown patristic treatise. Could
it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias "On the Words of Our
Lord," which was known to have existed as late as the twelfth century at
Nimes?[A] In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to
Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from
the bank and stay at St. Bertrand till the money came. He glanced up at
the sacristan to see if his face yielded any hint that the book was for
sale. The sacristan was pale, and his lips were working.

"If monsieur will turn on to the end," he said.

So monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf;
and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of much
more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him
considerably. They must be contemporary, he decided, with the
unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter
library of St. Bertrand to form this priceless scrapbook. On the first
of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly
recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and
cloisters of St. Bertrand's. There were curious signs looking like
planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the
northwest angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Below
the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus:

"Responsa 12^{mi} Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est:
Inveniamne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne d