But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth.  Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colors, the cross was black.  Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity, and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book wrapped in a white cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread.  Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume.  “Too large for a missal,” he thought, “and not the shape of an antiphoner; 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: