The atmosphere seemed charged all day; the very buildings wore a strange air, unfamiliar and menacing.  The intimate bond between his soul and them, knit by associations of prayer and effort, appeared unreal and flimsy.  He was tormented by doubtfulness; he could not understand on the one side how it was possible to yield to the King, on the other how it was possible to resist.  No final decision could be made by him until he had heard the minds of his fellows; and fortunately they would all speak before him.  He busied himself then with disentangling the strands of motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the knot until he knew more.

Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind in the chapels behind.

Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.

* * * * *

He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that they must be fearless now in following it out.  It was easy to be reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God.  They had not to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the times.

“For myself,” he cried,—­and Chris almost thought him sincere as he spoke, so kindled was his face—­“for myself I should ask no more than to live and die in this place, as I had hoped.  Every stone here is as dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that.  We must be ready to leave all willingly if God wills.  We thought that we had yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years ago.  We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may be even nearer if we go out according to His will.”

He seemed on fire with zeal and truth.  His timid peevish air was gone, and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke.  Chris was astonished, and more perplexed than ever.  Was it then possible that God’s will might lie in the direction he feared?

“Now this is the matter which we have to consider,” went on the Prior more quietly.  “His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory.  There is no compulsion in the matter—­” he paused significantly—­“and his Grace desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of—­of his own free will.”