And so it went on for an hour; and then as it grew late, the Prior rose once more, and asked if any one had a word to say who had not yet spoken.

Chris had intended to speak, but all that he wished to ask had already been stated by others; and he sat now silent, staring up at the Prior, and down at the smooth boarded floor at his feet.  He had not an idea what to do.  He was no theologian.

Then the Prior unmasked his last gun.

“As regards the matter of time for consideration, that is now passed.  In spite of what some have said we have had sufficient warning.  All here must have known that the choice would be laid before them, for months past; it is now an answer that is required of us.”

He paused a moment longer.  His lips began to tremble, but he made a strong effort and finished.

“Master Petre will be here to-night, as my lord Cromwell’s representative, and will sit in the chapter-house to-morrow to receive the surrender.”

Dom Anthony started to his feet.  The Prior made a violent gesture for silence, and then gave the signal to break up.

* * * * *

Again the bewildering day went past.  The very discipline of the house was a weakness in the defence of the surprised party.  It was impossible for them to meet and discuss the situation as they wished; and even the small times of leisure seemed unusually occupied.  Dom Anthony was busy at the guest-house; one of the others who had spoken against the proposal was sent off on a message by the Prior, and another was ordered to assist the sacristan to clean the treasures in view of the Visitor’s coming.

Chris was not able to ask a word of advice from any of those whom he thought to be in sympathy with him.

He sat all day over his antiphonary, in the little carrel off the cloister, and as he worked his mind toiled like a mill.

He had progressed a long way with the work now, and was engaged on the pages that contained the antiphons for Lent.  The design was soberer here; the angels that had rested among the green branches and early roses of Septuagesima, thrusting here a trumpet and there a harp among the leaves, had taken flight, and grave menacing creatures were in their place.  A jackal looked from behind the leafless trunk, a lion lifted his toothed mouth to roar from a thicket of thorns, as they had lurked and bellowed in the bleak wilderness above the Jordan fifteen hundred years ago.  They were gravely significant now, he thought; and scarcely knowing what he did he set narrow human eyes in the lion’s face (for he knew no better) and broadened the hanging jaws with a delicate line or two.

Then with a fierce impulse he crowned him, and surmounted the crown with a cross.

And all the while his mind toiled at the problem.  There were three things open to him on the morrow.  Either he might refuse to sign the surrender, and take whatever consequences might follow; or he might sign it; and there were two processes of thought by which he might take that action.  By the first he would simply make an act of faith in his superiors, and do what they did because they did it; by the second he would sign it of his own responsibility because he decided to think that by doing so he would be taking the best action for securing his own monastic life.