CHAPTER 10Laura’s first sight of the Priory was etched indelibly upon her mind. There was no sun. The clouds hung low. The January day was darkening already, though it was not four o’clock. They came up a drive between sombre evergreens and under leafless trees, and then out upon a great rectangle of gravel with the house on its farther side—a grey house with a central block and two wings enclosing a paved courtyard with a fountain in the middle, and the right-hand wing was the ruined Priory church. She looked at it with all her eyes, letting down the window and leaning out.
The ruined arch of the east window faced them as they turned into the court. Sky and trees showed briefly through the empty windows. The effect was startling and graceful. The ruins were grey and clean and bare, but t
