It did not take long. If his humiliation was complete, the abbot did nothing to prolong it. 'This will remain a secret,' he told Adam, 'for the sake of the abbey and, I may add, for that of the woman and her family. You must leave here at once. Today. But I want no one to know why.'

'Where am I to go?'

'I'm sending you to our daughter house down in Devon. To Newenham. Nobody will think that strange. They've been struggling a bit down there and you are - or were - one of our best monks.'

Adam bowed his head. 'May I say farewell to Mary Furzey?'

'Certainly not. You are to have no communication with her whatsoever.'

'I am surprised' - it was Grockleton now, he couldn't resist it - 'that you should even think of such a thing.'

'Well.' Adam sighed. Then he looked at Grockleton sadly, though without malice. 'You have never done such a thing.'

There was silence in the room. The claw did not move. Perhaps the prior might have stooped forward a little lower over the dark old table. The abbot's face was a mask as he gazed carefully into the middle distance. So Brother Adam did not guess that in the abbot's secret book there was a notation concerning John of Grockleton and a woman, and a child. But that had been in another monastery, far away in the north, a long time ago.

After he had gone the abbot asked: 'He doesn't know she's pregnant, does he?'

'No.'

'Better he shouldn't.'

'Quite.' Grockleton nodded.

'Oh dear.' The abbot sighed. 'We are none of us safe from falling, as you know,' he added meaningfully.

'I know.'

'I want him given two pairs of new shoes,' the abbot added firmly, 'before he goes.'

It was not quite noon when Brother Adam and John of Grockleton, accompanied by one lay brother, rode slowly out of the abbey and up the track that led to Beaulieu Heath.

As he rode, Adam noticed the small trees that crowned the slope opposite the abbey. The salt sea breeze from the south-west had not bent them, but shaped the tops so that they all looked as if they had been shaved down that side; and they flowered towards the north-east. It was a common sight in the coastal parts of the Forest.

White clouds were scudding over the tranquil, sunlit abbey behind them and, as they crested the little ridge, Adam felt the sharp salt breeze full upon his face.

Brother Luke returned quietly to St Leonards Grange a week later. His case did not come up before the justice at the Michaelmas court.

At about the time of the court, Mary told her husband that he might be going to be a father again.