He reflected what the effect of that news must be; as it penetrated each day, like a stone dropped softly into a pool, leaving no ripple.

There, behind each brown door, he fancied to himself, a strange alchemy was proceeding, in which each new terror and threat from outside was received into the crucible of a beating heart and transmuted by prayer and welcome into some wonderful jewel of glory--at least so these poor men believed; and Ralph indignantly told himself it was nonsense; they were idlers and dreamers.

He reminded himself of a sneer he had heard against the barrels of Spanish wine that were taken in week by week at the monastery door; if these men ate no flesh too, at least they had excellent omelettes.
But as he passed at last through the lay-brothers' choir and stood looking through the gates of the Fathers' choir up to the rich altar with its hangings and its posts on either side crowned with gilded angels bearing candles, to the splendid window overhead, against which, as in a glory, hung the motionless silk-draped pyx, the awe fell on him again.
This was the place where they met, these strange, silent men; every panel and stone was saturated with the prayers of experts, offered three times a day--in the night-office of two or three hours when the world was asleep; at the chapter-mass; and at Vespers in the afternoon.
His heart again stirred a little, superstitiously he angrily told himself, at the memory of the stories that were whispered about in town.
Two years ago, men said, a comet had been seen shining over the house.
As the monks went back from matins, each with his lantern in his hand, along the dark cloister, a ray had shot out from the comet, had glowed upon the church and bell-tower, and died again into darkness.

Again, a little later, two monks, one in his cell-garden and the other in the cemetery, had seen a blood-red globe, high and menacing, hanging in the air over the house.
Lastly, at Pentecost, at the mass of the Holy Ghost, offered at the end of a triduum with the intention of winning grace to meet any sacrifice that might be demanded, not one nor two, but the whole community, including the lay-brothers outside the Fathers' Choir, had perceived a soft whisper of music of inexpressible sweetness that came and went overhead at the Elevation.

The celebrant bowed forward in silence over the altar, unable to continue the mass, the monks remained petrified with joy and awe in their stalls.
Ralph stared once more at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass on either side and in front--and asked himself whether it was true, whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been opened here to let the music escape.
It was not true, he told himself; it was the dream of a man mad with sleeplessness, foolish with fasting and discipline and vigils: one had dreamed it and babbled of it to the rest and none had liked to be less spiritual or perceptive of divine manifestations.
A brown figure was by the altar now to light the candles for Vespers; a taper was in his hand, and the spot of light at the end moved like a star against the gilding and carving.