CHAPTER XXIWinter had come, and since Denise’s cell stood on the northern slope of Mountjoye Hill, it was bitter cold there, nor would the north wind be stopped by such things as a thorn hedge or a closed door. To Denise the cold was but part of the misery that was closing upon her, for people were hardier in those days, and less softened by the luxury of glass and carpets. But it was not the cold that kept her wakeful through the night, but the blank and unpitying face of the future that never departed from before her eyes. Denise knew the truth now, and soon the world might know it also.
The Abbey folk had sent her no winter gear, but that was Dom Silvius’s affair, perhaps due to his meanness, or his discontent with her, or to the feeling that a recluse whose prayers went unanswered nee
