“Of course he should not; but he does not know that.  He thinks he is advising you well.  You must let him alone, Chris. You must remember he is almost mad with business.  Master Cromwell works him hard.”

* * * * *

The chapel was but dimly lighted as Chris made his way up to the high gallery at the west where he usually knelt.  The altar glimmered in the dusk at the further end, and only a couple of candles burned on the priest’s kneeling stool on the south side.  The rest was dark, for the house hold knew compline by heart; and even before Chris reached his seat he heard the blessing asked for a quiet night and a perfect end.  It was very soothing to him as he leaned over the oak rail and looked down on the dim figures of his parents in their seat at the front, and the heads of the servants below, and listened to the quiet pulsation of those waves of prayer going to and fro in the dusk, beating, as a summer tide at the foot of a cliff against those white steps that rose up to the altar where a single spark winked against the leaded window beneath the silk-shrouded pyx.  He had come home full of excitement and joy at his first sight of an ecstatic, and at the message that she had seemed to have for him, and across these heightened perceptions had jarred the impatience of his brother in the inn at Begham and in the carriage on their way home, and above all his sharp criticism and aloofness in the parlour just now.  But he became quieter as he knelt now; the bitterness seamed to sink beneath him and to leave him alone in a world of peaceful glory—­the world of mystic life to which his face was now set, illuminated by the words of the nun.  He had seen one who could see further than he himself; he had looked upon eyes that were fixed on mysteries and realms in which he indeed passionately believed, but which were apt to be faint and formless sometimes to the weary eyes of faith alone; and as a proof that these were more than fancies she had told him too of what he could verify—­of the priory at Lewes which she had never visited, and even the details of the ring on the Prior’s finger which he alone of the two had seen.  And then lastly she had encouraged him in his desires, had seen him with those same wide eyes in the habit that he longed to wear, going about the psalmody—­the great Opus Dei—­to which he longed to consecrate his life.  If such were not a message from God to him for what further revelation could he hope?

And as for Ralph’s news and interests, of what value were they?  Of what importance was it to ask who sat on the Consort’s throne, or whether she wore purple velvet or red?  These were little matters compared with those high affairs of the soul and the Eternal God, of which he was already beginning to catch glimpses, and even the whispers that ran about the country places and of which Ralph no doubt could tell him much if he chose, of the danger that threatened the religious houses, and of Henry’s intentions towards them—­even these were but impotent cries of the people raging round the throne of the Anointed.