One day, some six weeks after his admission to the Monastery, and
shortly before John's departure thence, Roger had been strangely uneasy
and depressed for many hours. It was no return of the trance-like state
in which he was not master of his own words and actions. Those attacks
had almost ceased, and he had been rapidly gaining in strength in
consequence. This depression and restless uneasiness was something new
and strange. Raymond did not know what it might forebode, but he tried
to dissipate it by cheerful talk, and Roger did his best to fight
against it, though without much success.

"Some evil presence is near!" he exclaimed suddenly; "I know it -- I
feel it! I ever felt this sick shuddering when those wicked men
approached me. Methinks that one of them must even now be nigh at hand.
Can they take me hence? Do I indeed belong to them? O save me -- help
me! Give me not up to their power!"

His agitation became so violent, that it was a relief to Raymond that
Father Paul at this moment appeared; and as this phase in Roger's state
was something new, and did not partake of the nature of any spiritual
possession, he dismissed Raymond with a smile, bidding him go out for
one of the brief wanderings in the woods that were at once pleasant and
necessary for him, whilst he himself remained beside Roger, soothing his
nameless terrors and assuring him that no power in the land, not even
that of the King himself, would be strong enough to force from the
keeping of the Church any person who had sought Sanctuary beneath her
shadow.

Meantime Raymond went forth, as he was wont to do, into the beech wood
that lay behind the home of the monks. It was a very beautiful place at
all times; never more so than when the first tender green of coming