"Do you not see in this the Hand of God? Will you not bow in penitence before Him, confessing the sinfulness of the thing you had in mind to do?"

The shrouded head was lifted higher, as if with a proud gesture of disavowal. At the same time, the hood slightly parting, the hand of a man, lean and brown, gripped it close.

The Prioress looked long at that lean, brown hand.

Then she rose slowly to her feet.

"Shew me—thy—face," she said; and the tension of each word was like a naked blade passing in and out of quivering flesh.

At sound of it the figure stood erect, took one step forward, flung back the hood, tore open the robe and scapulary, loosing his arms from the wide sleeves.

And—as the hood fell back—the Prioress found herself looking into a face she had not thought to see again in life—the face of him who once had been her lover.



CHAPTER XI

THE YEARS ROLL BACK

"Hugh!" exclaimed the Prioress.

And again, in utter bewilderment: "Hugh?"

And yet a third time, in a low whisper of horror, passing her left hand across her eyes, as if to clear from her outer vision some nightmare of the inner mind: "Hugh!"

The silent Knight still made no answer; but he flung aside the clinging robes, stepped from out them, and strode forward, both arms outstretched.

"Back!" cried the Prioress. But her hand had left the hilt of the dagger. "Come no nearer," she commanded.

Then she sank into her chair, spreading her trembling hands upon the carven manes of the lions.

The Knight, still silent, folded his arms across his breast.

Thus for a space they gazed on one another—these two, who had parted, eight years before, with clinging lips and straining arms, a deep, pure passion of love surging within them; a union of heart, made closer by the wrench of outward separation.

The Knight looked at the lips of the noble woman before him; and as he looked those firm lips quivered, trembled, parted——

Then—the years rolled back——

* * * * * *

It was moonlight on the battlements. The horses champed in the courtyard below. They two had climbed to the topmost turret, that they might part as near the stars as possible, and that, unseen by others, she might watch him ride away.

How radiant she looked, in her robe of sapphire velvet, jewels at her breast and girdle, a mantle of ermine hanging from her shoulders. But brighter than any jewels were the eyes full of love and tears; and softer than softest velvet, the beautiful hair which, covered her, as with a golden veil. Standing with his arms around her, it flowed over his hands. Silent he stood, looking deep into her eyes.

Below they could hear Martin Goodfellow calling to the men-at-arms.

Her lips being free, she spoke.

"Thou wilt come back to me, Hugh," she said. "The Saracens will not slay thee, will not wound thee, will not touch thee. My love will ever be around thee, as a silver shield."

She flung her strong young arms about him, long and supple, enfolding him closely, even as his enfolded her.

He filled his hands with her soft hair, straining her closer.

"I would I left thee wife, not maid. Could I have wed thee first, I would go with a lighter heart."

"Wife or maid," she answered, her face lifted to his, "I am all thine own. Go with a light heart, dear man of mine, for it makes no difference. Maid or wife, I am thine, and none other's, forever."

"Let those be the last words I hear thee say," he murmured, as his lips sought hers.

So, a little later, standing above him on the turret steps, she bent and clasped her hands about his head, pushing her fingers into the thickness of his hair. Then: "Maid or wife," she said, and her voice now steady, was deep and tender; "Maid or wife, God knows, I am all thine own." Then she caught his face to her breast. "Thine and none other's, forever," she said; and he felt her bosom heave with one deep sob.

Then turning quickly he ran down the winding stair, reached the courtyard, mounted, and rode out through the gates of Castle Norelle, and into the fir wood; and so down south to follow the King, who already had started on the great Crusade.

And, as he rode, in moonlight or in shadow, always he saw the sweet lips that trembled, always he felt the soft heave of that sob, and the low voice so tender, said: "Thine and none other's, forever."

* * * * * *

And now——

The Prioress sat in her chair of state.

Each moment her face grew calmer and more stern.

The Knight let his eyes dwell on the fingers which once crept so tenderly into his hair.

She hid them beneath her scapulary, as if his gaze scorched them.

He looked at the bosom against which his head had been pressed.

A jewelled cross gleamed, there where his face had laid hidden.

Then the Knight lifted his eyes again to that stern, cold face. Yet still he kept silence.

At length the Prioress spoke.

"So it is you," she said.

"Yes," said the Knight, "it is I."

Wroth with her own poor heart because it thrilled at his voice, the Prioress spoke with anger.

"How did you dare to force your way into this sacred cloister?"

The Knight smiled. "I have yet to find the thing I dare not do."

"Why are you not with your wife?" demanded the Prioress; and her tone was terrible.

"I am with my wife," replied the Knight. "The only wife I have ever wanted, the only woman I shall ever wed, is here."

"Coward!" cried the Prioress, white with anger. "Traitor!" She leaned forward, clenching her hands upon the lions' heads. "Liar! You wedded your cousin, Alfrida, less than one year after you went from me."

"Cease to be angry," said the Knight. "Thine anger affrights me not, yet it hurts thyself. Listen, mine own beloved, and I will tell thee the cruel, and yet blessed, truth.

"Seven months after I left thee, a messenger reached our camp, bearing letters from England; no word for me from thee; but a long missive from thy half-sister Eleanor, breaking to me the news that, being weary of my absence, and somewhat over-persuaded, thou hadst wedded Humphry; Earl of Carnforth.

"It was no news to me, that Humphry sought to win thee; but, that thou hadst let thyself be won away from thy vow to me, was hell's own tidings.

"In my first rage of grief I would have speech with none. But, by-and-by, I sought the messenger, and asked him casually of things at home. He told me he had seen thy splendid nuptials with the lord of Carnforth, had been present at the marriage, and joined in the after revels and festivities. He said thou didst make a lovely bride, but somewhat sad, as if thy mind strayed elsewhere. The fellow was a kind of lawyer's clerk, but lean, and out at elbow.

"Then I sought 'Frida, my cousin. She too had had a letter, giving the news. She told me she long had feared this thing for me, knowing the heart of Humphry to be set on winning thee, and that Eleanor approved his suit, and having already heard that of late thou hadst inclined to smile on him. She begged me to do nothing rash or hasty.

"'What good were it,' she said, 'to beg the King for leave to hasten home? If you kill Humphry, Hugh, you do but make a widow of the woman you have loved; nor could you wed the widow of a man yourself had slain. If Humphry kills you—well, a valiant arm is lost to the Holy Cause, and other hearts, more faithful than hers, may come nigh to breaking. Stay here, and play the man.'

"So, by the messenger, I sent thee back a letter, asking thee to write me word how it was that thou, being my betrothed, hadst come to do this thing; and whether Humphry was good to thee, and making thy life pleasant. To Humphry I sent a letter saying that, thy love being round him as a silver shield, I would not slay him, wound him, or touch him! But—if he used thee ill, or gave thee any grief or sorrow, then would I come, forthwith, and send him straight to hell.

"These letters, with others from the camp, went back to England by that clerkly messenger. No answers were returned to mine.

"Meanwhile I went, with my despair, out to the battlefield.

"No tender shield was round me any more. I fought, like a mad wild beast. So often was I wounded, that they dubbed me 'The Knight of the Bloody Vest.'

"At last they brought me back to camp, delirious and dying. My cousin 'Frida, there biding her time, nursed me back to life, and sought to win for herself (I shame to say it) the love which thou hadst flouted. I need not tell thee, my cousin 'Frida failed. The Queen herself as good as bid me wed her favourite Lady. The Queen herself had to discover that she could command an English soldier's life, but not his love.

"Back in the field again, I found myself one day, cut off, surrounded, hewn down, taken prisoner; but by a generous foe.

"Thereafter followed years of much adventure; escapes, far distant wanderings, strange company. Many months I spent in a mountain fastness with a wise Hebrew Rabbi, who taught me his sacred Scriptures; going back to the beginning of all things, before the world was; yet shrewd in judgment of the present, and throwing a weird light forward upon the future. A strange man; wise, as are all of that Chosen Race; and a faithful friend. He did much to heal my hurt and woo me back to sanity.

"Later, more than a year with a band of holy monks in a desert monastery, high among the rocks; good Fathers who believed in Greek and Latin as surest of all balsams for a wounded spirit, and who made me to become deeply learned in Apostolic writings, and in the teachings of the Church. But, for all their best endeavours, I could not feel called to the perpetual calm of the Cloister. We are a line of fighters and hunters, men to whom pride of race and love of hearth and home, are primal instincts.

"Thus, after many further wanderings and much varying adventure, having by a strange chance heard news of the death of my father, and that my mother mourned. In solitude, the opening of this year found me landed in England—I who, by most, had long been given up for dead; though Martin Goodfellow, failing to find trace of me in Palestine, had gone back to Cumberland, and staunchly maintained his belief that I lived, a captive, and should some day make my escape, and return.

"I passed with all speed to our Castle on the moors, knowing a mother's heart waited here, for mothers never cease to watch and hope. And, sure enough, as I rode up, the great doors flew wide; the house waited its master; the mother was on the threshold to greet her son. Aye! It was good to be at home once more—even in the land where my woman was bearing children to another man.

"We spent a few happy days, I and my mother, together. Then—the joy of hope fulfilled being sometimes a swifter harbinger to another world than the heaviest load of sorrow—she passed, without pain or sickness, smiling, in her sleep; she passed—leaving my home desolate indeed.

"Not having known of my betrothal to thee, because of the old feud between our families, and my reluctance to cross her wish that I should wed Alfrida, thy name was not spoken between us; but I learned from her that my cousin 'Frida lay dying at her manor, nigh to Chester, of some lingering disease contracted in eastern lands."

"With the first stirrings of Spring in forest and pasture, I felt moved to ride south to the Court, and report my return to the King; yet waited, strangely loath to go abroad where any turn of the road might bring me face to face with Humphry. I doubted, should we meet, if I could pass, without slaying him, the man who had stolen my betrothed from me. So I stayed in my own domain, bringing things into order, working in the armoury, and striving by hard exercise to throttle the grim demon of despair.

"April brought a burst of early summer; and, on the first day of May, I set off for Windsor.

"Passing through Carnforth on my way, I found the town keeping high holiday. I asked the reason, and was told of a Tourney now in progress in the neighbourhood, to which the Earl had that morning ridden in state, accompanied by his Countess, who indeed was chosen Queen of Beauty, and was to sit enthroned, attended by her little daughter, two tiny sons acting as pages.

"A sudden mad desire came on me, to look upon thy face again; to see thee with the man who stole thee from me; with the children, who should have been mine own.

"Ten minutes later, I rode on to the field. Pushing in amid the gay crowd, I seemed almost at once to find myself right in front of the throne.

"I saw the Queen of Beauty, in cloth of gold. I saw the little maiden and the pages in attendance. I saw Humphry, proud husband and father, beside them. All this I saw, which I had come to see. But—the face of Humphry's Countess was not thy face! In that moment I knew that, for seven long years, I had been fooled!

"I started on a frenzied quest after the truth, and news of thee.

"Thy sister Eleanor had died the year before. To thy beautiful castle and lands, so near mine own, Eleanor's son had succeeded, and ruled there in thy stead. He being at Court just then, I saw him not, nor could I hear direct news of thee, though rumour said a convent.

"Then I remembered my cousin, Alfrida, lying sick at her manor in Chester. To her I went; and, walking in unannounced—I, whom she had long thought dead—I forced the truth from her. The whole plot stood revealed. She and Eleanor had hatched it between them. Eleanor desiring thy lands for herself and her boy, and knowing children of thine would put hers out of succession; Alfrida—it shames me to say it—desiring for herself, thy lover.

"The messenger who brought the letters was bribed to give details of thy supposed marriage. On his return to England, my letters to thee and to Humphry he handed to Eleanor; also a lying letter from 'Frida, telling of her marriage with me, with the Queen's consent and approval, and asking Eleanor to break the news to thee. The messenger then mingled with thy household, describing my nuptials in detail, as, when abroad, he had done thine. Hearing of this, my poor Love did even as I had done, sent for him, questioned him, heard the full tale he had to tell, and saw, alas! no reason to misdoubt him.

"By the way, my cousin 'Frida knew where to lay her hand upon that clerkly fellow. Therefore we sent for him. He came in haste to see the Lady Alfrida, from whom, during all the years, he had extorted endless hush-money.

"I and my men awaited him.

"He had fattened on his hush-money! He was no longer lean and out at elbow.

"He screeched at sight of me, thinking me risen from the dead.

"He screeched still louder when he saw the noose, flung over a strong bough.

"We left him hanging, when we rode away. That Judas kind will do the darkest deeds for greed of gain. The first of the tribe himself shewed the way by which it was most fitting to speed them from a world into which it had been good for them never to have been born.

"From Alfrida I learned that, as Eleanor had foreseen, thy grief at my perfidy drove thee to the Cloister. Also that thy Convent was near Worcester.

"To Worcester I came, and made myself known to the Lord Bishop, with whom I supped; and finding him most pleasant to talk with, and ready to understand, deemed it best, in perfect frankness, to tell him the whole matter; being careful not to mention thy name, nor to give any clue to thy person.

"Through chance remarks let fall by the Bishop while giving me the history of the Order, I learned that already thou wert Prioress of the White Ladies. 'The youngest Prioress in the kingdom,' said the Bishop, 'yet none could be wiser or better fitted to hold high authority.' Little did he dream that any mention of thee was as water to the parched desert; yet he talked on, for love of speaking of thee, while I sat praying he might tell me more; yet barely answering yea or nay, seeming to be absorbed in mine own melancholy thoughts.

"From the Bishop I learned that the Order was a strictly close one, and that no man could, on any pretext whatsoever, gain speech alone with one of the White Ladies.

"But I also heard of the underground way leading from the Cathedral to the Convent, and of the daily walk to and from Vespers.

"I went to the crypt, and saw the doorway through which the White Ladies pass. Standing unseen amid the many pillars, I daily watched the long line of silent figures, noted that they all walked veiled, with faces hidden, keeping a measured distance apart. Also that several were above usual height. Then I conceived the plan of wearing the outer dress, and of stepping in amongst those veiled figures just at the foot of the winding stair in the wall, leading down from the clerestory to the crypt. I marked that the nun descending, could not keep in view the nun in front who had just stepped forth into the crypt; while she, moving forward, would not perceive it if, slipping from behind a pillar, another white figure silently joined the procession behind her. Once within the Convent, I trusted to our Lady to help me to speech alone with thee; and our blessed Lady hath not failed me.

"Now I have told thee all."

With that the Knight left speaking; and, after the long steady recitation, the ceasing of his voice caused a silence which, seemed, to hold the very air suspended.

Not once had the Prioress made interruption. She had sat immovable, her eyes upon his face, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Long before the tale was finished her sad eyes had overflowed, the tears raining down her cheeks, and falling upon the cross at her breast.

When he had told all, when the deep, manly voice—now resolute, now eager, now vibrant with fierce indignation, yet tender always when speaking of her—at last fell silent, the Prioress fought with her emotion, and mastered it; then, so soon as she could safely trust her voice, she spoke.



CHAPTER XII

ALAS, THE PITY OF IT!

At length the Prioress spoke.

"Alas," she said, "the pity of it! Ah, the cruel, cruel pity of it!"

Her voice, so sweet and tender, yet so hopeless in the unquestioning finality of its regret, struck cold upon the heart of the Knight.

"But, my beloved, I have found thee," he said, and dropping upon one knee at her feet, he put out his hands to cover both hers. But the Prioress was too quick for him. She hid her hands beneath her scapulary. The Knight's brown fingers closed on the lions' heads.

"Touch me not," said the Prioress.

The Knight flushed, darkly.

"You are mine," he said. "Mine to have and to keep. During these wretched years we have schooled ourselves each to think of the other as wedded. Now we know that neither has been faithless. I have found thee, my beloved, and I will not let thee go."

"Hugh," said the Prioress, "I am wedded. You come too late. Saw you not the sacred ring upon my hand? Know you not that every nun is the bride of Christ?"

"You are mine!" said the Knight, fiercely; and he laid his great hand upon her knee.

From beneath her scapulary, the Prioress drew the dagger.

"Before I went to the cloister door," she said, "I took this from its hiding-place, and put it in my girdle. I guessed I had a man to deal with; though, Heaven knows, I dreamed not it was thou! But I tell thee, Hugh, if thou, or any man, attempt to lay defiling touch upon any nun in this Priory—myself, or another—I strike, and I strike home. This blade will be driven up to the hilt in the offender's heart."

The Knight rose to his feet, stepped to the window and leaned, with folded arms, against the wall.

"Put back thy weapon," he said, sternly, "into its hiding-place. No other man is here; yet, should another come, my sword would well suffice to guard thine honour, and the honour of thy nuns."

She looked at his dark face, scornful in its pain; then went at once, obedient, to the secret panel.

"Yes, Hugh," she said. "That much of trust indeed I owe thy love."

As she placed the dagger in the wall and closed the panel, something fell from her, intangible, yet real.

For so long, she had had to command. Bowing, kneeling, hurrying women flew to do her behests. Each vied with the others to magnify her Office. Often, she felt lonely by reason of her dignity.

And now—a man's dark face frowned on her in scornful anger; a man's stern voice flung back her elaborate threat with a short command, which disarmed her, yet which she obeyed. Moreover, she found it strangely sweet to obey. Behind the sternness, behind the scornful anger, there throbbed a great love. In that love she trusted; but with that love she had to deal, putting it from her with a finality which should be beyond question.

Yet the "Prioress" fell from her, as she closed the panel. It was the Woman and the Saint who moved over to the window and stood beside the Knight, in the radiance of a golden sunset after storm.

There was about her, as she spoke, a wistful humbleness; and a patient sadness, infinitely touching.

"Sir Hugh," she said, "my dear Knight, whom I ever found brave and tender, and whom I now know to have been always loyal and true—there is no need that I should add a word to your recital. The facts you wrung from Alfrida—God grant forgiveness to that tormented heart—are all true. Believing the messenger, not dreaming of doubting Eleanor, my one thought was to hide from the world my broken heart, my shattered pride. I hastened to offer to God the love and the life which had been slighted by man. I confess this has since seemed to me but a poor second-best to have brought to Him, Who indeed should have our very best. But, daily kneeling at His Feet, I said: 'A broken and a contrite heart, Lord, Thou wilt not despise.' My heart was 'broken,' when I brought it here. It has been 'contrite' since. And well I know, although so far from worthy, it has not been despised."

She lifted her eyes to the golden glory behind the battlements of purple cloud.

"Our blessed Lady interceded," she said, simply; "she, who understands a woman's heart."

The Knight was breathing hard. The folded arms rose and fell, with the heaving of his chest. But he kept his lips firm shut; though praying, all the while, that our Lady might have, also, some understanding of the heart of a man!

"I think it right that you should know, dear Hugh," went on the sad voice, gently; "that, at first, I suffered greatly. I spent long agonizing nights, kneeling before our Lady's shrine, imploring strength to conquer the love and the longing which had become sin."

A stifled groan broke from the Knight.

The golden light shone in her steadfast eyes, and played about her noble brow.

"And strength was given," she said, very low.

"Mora!" cried the Knight—She started. It was so long since she had heard her own name—"You prayed for strength to conquer, when you thought it sin; just as I rode out to meet the foe, to fight and slay, and afterward wrestled with unknown tongues, doing all those things which were hardest, while striving to quench my love for you. But when I knew that no other man had right to you or ever had had right, why then I found that nothing had slain my love, nor ever could. And Mora, now you know that I am free, is your love dead?"

She clasped her hands over the cross at her breast. His voice held a deep passion of appeal; yet he strove, loyally, to keep it calm.

"Listen, Hugh," she said. "If, thinking me faithless, you had turned for consolation to another; if, though you brought her but your second best, you yet had won and wed her; now, finding after all that I had not wedded Humphry, would you leave your bride, and try to wake again your love for me?"

"You seek to place me," he said, "in straits in which, by mine own act, I shall never be. Loving you as I love you, I could wed no other while you live."

She paled, but persisted.

"But, if, Hugh? If?"

"Then, no," he said. "I should not leave one I had wed. But——"

"Hugh," she said, "thinking you faithless, I took the holy vows which wedded me to Heaven. How can I leave my heavenly Bridegroom, for love of any man upon this earth?"

"Not 'any man,'" he answered; "but your betrothed, returned to claim you; the man to whom you said as parting words: 'Maid or wife, I am all thine own; thine and none other's forever.' Ah, that brings the warm blood to thy cheek! Oh, my Heart's Life, if it was true then, it is true still! God is not a man that he should lie, or rob another of his bride. If I had wed another woman, I should have done that thing, honestly believing thee the wife of another man. But, all these years, while thou and I were both deceived, He, Who knoweth all, has known the truth. He knew thee betrothed to me. He heard thee say, upon the battlements, when last we stood together: 'God knows, I am all thine own.' He knew how, when I thought I had lost thee, I yet lived faithful to the pure memory of our love. The day thy vows were made, He knew that I was free, and thou, therefore, still pledged to me. Shall a man rob God? Ay, he may. But shall God rob a man? Nay, then, never!"

She trembled, wavered; then fled to the shrine of the Virgin, kneeling with hands outstretched.

"Holy Mother of God," she sobbed, "teach him that I dare not do this thing! Shew him that I cannot break my vows. Help him to understand that I would not, if I could."

He followed, and kneeled beside her; his proud head bent; his voice breaking with emotion.

"Blessed Virgin," he said. "Thou who didst dwell in the earthly home at Nazareth, help this woman of mine to understand, that if she break her troth to me, holding herself from me, now when I am come to claim her, she sends me forth to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

Together they knelt, before the tender image of Mother and Child; together, yet apart; he, loyally mindful not so much as to brush against a fold of her veil.

The dark face, and the fair, were lifted, side by side, as they knelt before the Madonna. For a while so motionless they kneeled, they might have been finely-modelled figures; he, bronze; she, marble.

Then, with a sudden movement, she put out her right hand, and caught his left.

Firmly his fingers closed over hers; but he drew no nearer.

Yet as they knelt thus with clasped hands, his pulsing life seemed to flow through her, undoing, in one wild, sweet moment, the work of years of fast and vigil.

"Ah, Hugh," she cried, suddenly, "spare me! Spare me! Tempt me not!"

Loosing her hand from his, she clasped both upon her breast.

The Knight rose, and stood beside her.

"Mora," he said, and his voice held a new tone, a tone of sadness and solemnity; "far be it from me to tempt you. I will plead with you but once again, in presence of our Lady and of the Holy Child; and, having so done, I will say no more.

"I ask you to leave this place, which you would never have entered had you known your lover was yours, and needing you. I ask you to keep your plighted word to me, and to become my wife. If you refuse, I go, returning not again. I leave you here, to kneel in peace, by night or day, before the shrine of the Madonna. But—I bid you to remember, day and night, that because of this which you have done, there can be no Madonna in my home. No woman will ever sit beside my hearth, holding a little child upon her knees.

"You leave to me the crucifix—heart broken, love betrayed; feet and hands nailed to the wood of cruel circumstance; side pierced by spear of treachery—lonely, forsaken. But you take from me all the best, both in life and in religion; all that tells of love, of joy, of hope for the years to come.

"Oh, my beloved, weigh it well! There are so many, with a true vocation, serving Heaven in Convent and in Cloister. There is but one woman in the whole world for me. In the sight of Heaven, nothing divides us. Convent walls now stand between—but they were built by man, not God. Vows of celibacy were not meant to sunder loving hearts. Mora? . . . Come!"

The Prioress rose and faced him.

"I cannot come," she said. "That which I have taught to others, I must myself perform. Hugh, I am dead to the world; and if I be dead to the world, how can I live to you? Had I, in very deed, died and been entombed, you would not have gone down into the vaults and forced my resting-place, that you might look upon my face, clasp my cold hand, and pour into deaf ears a tale of love. Yet that is what, by trick and artifice, you now have done. You come to a dead woman, saying; 'Love me, and be my wife.' She must, perforce, make answer: 'How shall I, who am dead to the world, live any longer therein?' Take a wife from among the Living, Hugh. Come not to seek a bride among the Dead."

"Mother of God!" exclaimed the Knight, "is this religion?"

He turned to the window, then to the door. "How can I go from here?"

The stifled horror in his voice chilled the very soul of the woman to whom he spoke. She had, indeed at last made him to understand.

"I must get you hence unseen," she said. "I dare not pass you out by the Convent gate. I fear me, you must go back the way you came; nor can you go alone. We hold the key to unlock the door leading from our passage into the Cathedral crypt. I will now send all the nuns to the Refectory. Then I myself must take you to the crypt."

"Can I not walk alone," asked the Knight, brusquely; "returning you the key by messenger?"

"Nay," said the Prioress, "I dare run no risks. So quickly rumours are afloat. To-morrow, this strange hour must be a dream; and you and I alone, the dreamers. Now, while I go and make safe the way, put you on again the robe and hood. When I return and beckon, follow silently."

The Prioress passed out, closing the door behind her.



CHAPTER XIII

"SEND HER TO ME!"

The Prioress stood for a moment outside the closed door. The peaceful silence of the passage helped her to the outward calm which must be hers before she could bring herself to face her nuns.

Moving slowly to the farther end, she unlocked the cell of Sister Mary Seraphine, feeling a shamed humility that she should have made so sure she had to deal with "Wilfred," and have thought such scorn of him and Seraphine. Alas! The wrong deeds of those they love, oft humble the purest, noblest spirits into the soiling dust.

Next, the Prioress herself rang the Refectory bell.

The hour for the evening meal was long passed; the nuns hastened out, readily.

As they trooped toward the stairs leading down to the Refectory, they saw their Prioress, very pale, very erect, standing with her back to the door of her chamber.

Each nun made a genuflexion as she passed; and to each, the Prioress slightly inclined her head.

To Sister Mary Rebecca, who kneeled at once, she spoke: "I come not to the meal this evening. In the absence of Mother Sub-Prioress, you will take my place."

"Yes, Reverend Mother," said Sister Mary Rebecca, meekly, and kissed the hem of the robe of the Prioress; then rising, hastened on, charmed to have a position of authority, however temporary.

When all had passed, the Prioress went into the cloisters, walked round them; looked over into the garden, observing every possible place from which prying eyes might have sight of the way from the passage to the crypt entrance. But the garden, already full of purple shadows, was left to the circling swifts. The robin sang an evening song from the bough, of the pieman's tree.

The Prioress returned along the passage, looking into every cell. Each door stood open wide; each cell was empty. The sick nuns were on a further passage, round the corner, beyond the Refectory stairs. Yet she passed along this also, making sure that the door of each occupied cell was shut.

Standing motionless at the top of the Refectory steps, she could hear the distant clatter of platters, the shuffling feet of the lay-sisters as they carried the dishes to and from the kitchens; and, above it all, the monotonous voice of Sister Mary Rebecca reading aloud to the nuns while they supped.

Then the Prioress took down one of the crypt lanterns and lighted it.

* * * * * *

Meanwhile the Knight, left alone, stood for a few moments, as if stunned.

He had played for a big stake and lost; yet he felt more unnerved by the unexpected finality of his own acquiescence in defeat, than by the firm refusal which had brought that defeat about.

It seemed to him, as he now stood alone, that suddenly he had realised the extraordinary detachment wrought by years of cloistered life. Aflame with love and longing he had come, seeking the Living among the Dead. It would have been less bitter to have knelt beside her tomb, knowing the heart forever still had, to the last, beat true with love for him; knowing the dead arms, lying cold and stiff, had he come sooner, would have been flung around him; knowing the lips, now silent in death, living, would have called to him in tenderest greeting.

But this cold travesty of the radiant woman he had left, said: "Touch me not," and bade him seek a wife elsewhere; he, who had remained faithful to her, even when he had thought her faithless.

And yet, cold though she was, in her saintly aloofness, she was still the woman he loved. Moreover she still had the noble carriage, the rich womanly beauty, the look of vital, physical vigour, which marked her out as meant by Nature to be the mother of brave sons and fair daughters. Yet he must leave her—to this!

He looked round the room, noted the low archway leading to the sleeping chamber, took a step toward it, then fell back as from a sanctuary; marked the great table, covered with missals, parchments, and vellum. It might well have been the cell of a learned monk, rather than the chamber of the woman he loved. His eye, travelling round, fell upon the Madonna and Child.

In the pure evening light there was a strangely arresting quality about the marble group; something infinitely human in the brooding tenderness of the Mother, as she bent over the smiling Babe. It spoke of home, rather than of the cloister. It struck a chord in the heart of the Knight, a chord which rang clear and true, above the jangle of disputation and bitterness.

He put out his hand and touched the little foot of the Holy Babe.

"Mother of God," he said aloud, "send her to me! Take pity on a hungry heart, a lonely home, a desolate hearth. Send her to me!"

Then he lifted from the floor the white robe and hood, and drew them on.



CHAPTER XIV

FAREWELL—HERE, AND NOW

When the Prioress, a lighted lantern in her hand, opened the door of her chamber, a tall figure in the dress of the White Ladies of Worcester stood motionless against the wall, facing the door.

"Come!" she whispered, beckoning; and, noiselessly, it stood beside her. Then she closed the door and, using her master-key, locked it behind her.

Silently the two white figures passed along the passage, through the cloister, and down the flight of steps into the Convent crypt. The Prioress unlocked the door and stooping they passed under the arch, and entered the subterranean way.

Placing the lantern on the ground, the Prioress drew out the key, closed the door, and locked it on the inside.

She turned, and lifting the lantern, saw that the Knight had rid himself of his disguise, and now stood before her, very straight and tall, just within the circle of light cast by her lantern.

With the closing and locking of the door a strange sense came over them, as of standing together in a third world—neither his nor hers—tomblike in its complete isolation and darkness; heavy with a smell of earth and damp stones; the slightest sound reverberating in hollow exaggeration; yet, in itself, silent as the grave.

This tomblike quality in their surroundings seemed to make their own vitality stronger and more palpitating.

The seconds of silence, after the grating of the key in the lock ceased, seemed hours.

Then the Knight spoke.

"Give me the lantern," he said.

She met his eyes. Again the dignity of her Office slipped from her. Again it was sweet to obey.

He held the lantern so that its light illumined her face and his.

"Mora," he said, "it is long since thou and I last walked together over the sunny fields, amid buttercups and cowslips, and the sweet-smelling clover. To-night we walk beneath the fields instead of through them. We are under the grass, my sweet. I seem to stand beside thee in the grave. And truly my hopes lie slain; the promise of our love is dead, and shall soon be buried. Yet thou and I still live, and now must walk together side by side, the sad ghosts of our former selves.

"So now I ask thee, Mora, for the sake of those past walks among the flowers, to lay thy hand within my arm and walk with me in gentle fellowship, here in this place of gloom and darkness, as, long ago, we walked among the flowers."

His dark eyes searched her face. An almost youthful eagerness vibrated in his voice.

She hesitated, lifting her eyes to his. Then slowly moved toward him and laid her hand within his arm.

Then, side by side, they paced on through the darkness; he, in his right hand, holding the lantern, swinging low, to light their feet; she, leaning on his left arm, keeping slow pace with him.

Over their heads, in the meadows, walked lovers, arm in arm; young men and maidens out in the gathering twilight. All nature, refreshed, poured forth a fragrant sweetness. But the rose, with its dewy petals, seemed to the youth less sweet than the lips of the maid. This, he shyly ventured to tell her; whereupon, as she bent to its fragrance, her cheeks reflected the crimson of those delicate folds.

So walked and talked young lovers in the Worcester meadows; little dreaming that, beneath their happy feet, the Knight and the Prioress paced slowly, side by side, through the darkness.

No word passed between them. With, her hand upon his arm, her face so near his shoulder, his arm pressing her hand closer and closer against his heart, silence said more than speech. And in silence they walked.

They passed beneath the city wall, under the Foregate.

The Sheriff rode home to supper, well pleased with a stroke of business accomplished in a house in which he had chanced to shelter during the storm.

The good people of Worcester bought and sold in the market. Men whose day's work was over, hastened to reach the rest and comfort of wife and home. Crowds jostled gaily through the streets, little dreaming that beneath their hurrying, busy feet, the Knight and the Prioress paced slowly, side by side, through the darkness.

Had the Knight spoken, her mind would have been up in arms to resist him. But, because he walked in silence, her heart had leisure to remember; and, remembering, it grew sorely tender.

At length they reached the doorway leading into the Cathedral crypt.

The Prioress carried the key in her left hand. Freeing her right from the grip of his arm, she slipped the key noiselessly into the lock; but, leaving it there unturned, she paused, and faced the Knight.

"Hugh," she said, "I beg you, for my sake and for the sake of all whose fair fame is under my care, to pass through quickly into the crypt, and to go from thence, if possible, unseen, or in such manner as shall prevent any suspicion that you come from out this hidden way. Tales of wrong are told so readily, and so quickly grow."

"I will observe the utmost caution," said the Knight.

"Hugh," she said, "I grieve to have had, perforce, to disappoint you." The brave voice shook. "This is our final farewell. Do you forgive me, Hugh? Will you think kindly, if you ever think on me?"

The Knight held the lantern so that its rays illumined both her face and his.

"Mora," he said, "I cannot as yet take thine answer as final. I will return no more, nor try to speak with thee again. But five days longer, I shall wait. I shall have plans made with the utmost care, to bear thee, in safety and unseen, from the Cathedral. I know the doors are watched, and that all who pass in and out are noted and observed. But, if thou wilt but come to me, beloved, trust me to know how to guard mine own. . . . Nay, speak not! Hear me out.

"Daily, after Vespers, I shall stand hidden among the pillars, close to the winding stair. One step aside—only one step—and my arm will be around thee. A new life of love and home will lie before us. I shall take thee, safely concealed, to the hostel where I and my men now lodge. There, horses will stand ready, and we shall ride at once to Warwick. At Warwick we shall find a priest—one in high favour, both in Church and State—who knows all, and is prepared to wed us without delay. After which, by easy stages, my wife, I shall take thee home."

He swung the lantern high. She saw the lovelight and the triumph, in his eyes. "I shall take thee home!" he said.

She stepped back a pace, lifting both hands toward him, palms outward, and stood thus gazing, with eyes full of sorrow.

"My poor Hugh," she whispered; "it is useless to wait. I shall not come."

"Yet five days," said the Knight, "I shall tarry in Worcester. Each day, after Vespers, I shall be here."

"Go to-day, dear Hugh. Ride to Warwick and tell thy priest, that which indeed he should know without the telling: that a nun does not break her vows. This is our final farewell, Hugh. Thou hadst best believe it, and go."

"Our last farewell?" he said.

"Our last."

"Here and now?"

"Here and now, dear Hugh."

Looking into that calm face, so lovely in its sadness, he saw that she meant it.

Of a sudden he knew he had lost her; he knew life's way stretched lonely before him, evermore.

"Yes," he said, "yes. It is indeed farewell—here and now—forever."

The dull despair in the voice which, but a few moments before, had vibrated with love and hope, wrung her heart.

She still held her hands before her, as if to ward him off.

"Ah, Hugh," she cried, sharply, "be merciful, and go! Spare me, and go quickly."

The Knight heard in her voice a tone it had not hitherto held. But he loved her loyally; therefore he kept his own anguish under strong control.

Placing the lantern on the ground, he knelt on one knee before her.

"Farewell, my Love," he said. "Our Lady comfort thee; and may Heaven forgive me, for that I have disturbed thy peace."

With which he lifted the hem of her robe, and pressed his lips upon it.

Thus he knelt, for a space, his dark head bent.

Slowly, slowly, the Prioress let drop her hands until, lightly as the fall of autumn leaves,—sad autumn leaves—they rested upon his head, in blessing and farewell.

But feeling his hair beneath her hands, she could not keep from softly smoothing it, nor from passing her fingers gently in and out of its crisp thickness.

Then her heart stood still, for of a sudden, in the silence, she heard a shuddering sob.

With a cry, she bent and gathered him to her, holding his head first against her knees, then stooping lower to clasp it to her breast; then as his strong arms were flung around her, she loosed his head, and, as he rose to his feet, slipped her arms about his neck, and surrendered to his embrace.

His lips sought hers, and at once she yielded them. His strong hands held her, and she, feeling the force of their constraint, did but clasp him closer.

Long they stood thus. In that embrace a life-time of pain passed from them, a life-time of bliss was born, and came with a rush to maturity, bringing with it a sense of utter completeness. A world of sweetest trust and certainty filled them; a joy so perfect, that the lonely vista of future years seemed, in that moment, to matter not at all.

All about them was darkness, silence as of the tomb; the heavy smell of earth; the dank chill of the grave.

Yet theirs was life more abundant; theirs, joy undreamed of; theirs, love beyond all imagining, while those moments lasted.

Then——

The hands about his neck loosened, unclasped, fell gently away.

He set free her lips, and they took their liberty.

He unlocked his arms, and stepping back she stood erect, like a fair white lily, needing no prop nor stay.

So they stood for a space, looking upon one another in silence. This thing which had happened, was too wonderful for speech.

Then the Prioress turned the key in the lock.

The heavy door swung open.

A dim, grey light, like a pearly dawn at sea, came downwards from the crypt.

Without a word the Knight, bending his head, passed under the archway, mounted the steps, and was lost to view among the many pillars.

She closed the door, locked it, and withdrawing the key, stood alone where they had stood together.

Then, sinking to the ground, she laid her face in the dust, there where his feet had been.

It was farewell, here and now; farewell forever.

* * * * * *

After a while the Prioress rose, took up the lantern, and started upon her lonely journey, back to the cloister door.



CHAPTER XV

"SHARPEN THE WITS OF MARY ANTONY"

When the Prioress started upon her pilgrimage to the Cathedral with the Knight, she locked the door of her chamber, knowing that thus her absence would remain undiscovered; for if any, knocking on the door, received no answer, or trying it, found it fast, they would hasten away without question; concluding that some special hour of devotion or time of study demanded that the Reverend Mother should be free from intrusion.

The atmosphere of the empty cell, charged during the past hour with such unaccustomed forces of conflict and of passion, settled into the quietude of an unbroken stillness.

The Madonna smiled serenely upon the Holy Babe. The dead Christ, with bowed head, hung forlorn upon the wooden cross. The ponderous volumes in black and silver bindings, lay undisturbed upon the table; and the Bishop's chair stood empty, with that obtrusive emptiness which, in an empty seat, seems to suggest an unseen presence filling it. The silence was complete.

But presently a queer shuffling sound began in the inner cell, as of something stiff and torpid compelling itself to action.

Then a weird figure, the wizen face distorted by grief and terror, appeared in the doorway—old Mary Antony, holding a meat chopper in her shaking hands, and staring, with chattering gums, into the empty cell.

That faithful soul, although dismissed, had resolved that the adored Reverend Mother should not go forth to meet dangers—ghostly or corporeal—alone and unprotected.

Hastening to the kitchens, she had given instructions that the evening meal was not to be served until the Reverend Mother herself should sound the bell.

Then, catching up a meat chopper, as being the most murderous-looking weapon at hand, and the most likely to strike terror into the ghostly heart of Sister Agatha, old Antony had hastened back to the passage.

Creeping up the stairs, hugging the wall, she had reached the top just in time to see, in the dim distance, the two tall white figures confronting one another.

Clinging to her chopper, motionless with horror, she had watched them, until they began, to come toward her, moving in the direction of the Reverend Mother's cell. They were still thirty yards away, at the cloister end of the passage. Old Antony was close to the open door.

Through it she had scurried, unheard, unseen, a terrified black shadow; yet brave withal; for with her went the meat chopper. Also she might have turned and fled back down the stairs, rather than into the very place whither she knew the Reverend Mother was conducting this tall spectre of the long dead Sister Agatha, grown to most alarming proportions during her fifty years' entombment! But being brave and faithful old Antony had sped into the inner cell, and crouched there in a corner; ready to call for help or strike with her chopper, should need arise.

Thus it came to pass that this old weaver of romances had perforce become a listener to a true romance so thrilling, so soul-stirring, that she had had to thrust the end of the wooden handle of the chopper into her mouth, lest she should applaud the noble Knight, cry counsel in his extremities, or invoke blessings on his enterprise. At each mention of the Ladies Eleanor and Alfrida, she shook her fist, and made signs with her old fingers, as of throttling, in the air. And when the clerkly messenger, arriving to speak with the Lady Alfrida—who, Saint Luke be praised, was by that time dying—found the Knight awaiting him with a noose flung over a strong bough, old Antony had laid down the chopper that she might the better hug herself with silent glee; and when the Knight rode away and left him hanging, she had whispered "Pieman! Pieman!" then clapped her hands over her mouth, rocking to and fro with merriment. When the Knight made mention that they called him "Knight of the Bloody Vest," old Antony had started; then had shaken her finger toward the entrance, as she was used to shake it at the robin, and had opened her wallet to search for crumbs of cheese. But soon again the story held her and, oblivious of the present, she had been back in the realms of romance.

Not until the Knight ceased speaking and the Reverend Mother's sad voice fell upon her ear, had old Antony realised the true bearing of the tale. Thereafter her heart had been torn by grief and terror. When they kneeled together, before the Madonna, with uplifted faces, Mary Antony had crawled forward and peeped. She had seen them kneeling—a noble pair—had seen the Prioress catch at his hand and clasp it; then, crawling back had fallen prostrate, overwhelmed, a huddled heap upon the floor.

The ringing of the Refectory bell had roused her from her stupor in time to hear the impassioned appeal of the Knight, as he kneeled alone before the Virgin's shrine.

Then, the Knight and the Prioress both being gone, Mary Antony had arisen, lifted her chopper with hands that trembled, and now stood with distraught mien, surveying the empty cell.

At length it dawned upon her that she and her weapon were locked into the Reverend Mother's cell; she, who had been most explicitly bidden to go to the kitchens and to remain there. It had been a sense of the enormity of her offence in having disobeyed the Reverend Mother's orders which, unconsciously, had caused her to stifle all ejaculations and move without noise, lest she should be discovered.

Yet now her first care was not for her own predicament, but for the two noble hearts, of whose tragic grief she had secretly been a witness.

Her eye fell on the Madonna, calmly smiling.

She tottered forward, kneeling where the Prioress had knelt.

"Holy Mother of God," she whispered, "teach him that she cannot do this thing!"

Then, moving along on her knees to where the Knight had kneeled: "Blessed Virgin!" she cried, "shew her that she cannot leave him desolate!"

Then shuffling back to the centre, and kneeling between the two places: "Sweetest Lady," she said, "be pleased to sharpen the old wits of Mary Antony."

Looking furtively at the Madonna, she saw that our Lady smiled. The blessed Infant, also, looked merry. Mary Antony chuckled, and took heart. When the Reverend Mother smiled, she always knew herself forgiven.

Moreover, without delay, her request was granted; for scarcely had she arisen from her knees, when she remembered the place where the Reverend Mother kept the key of her cell; and she, having locked the door, on leaving, with her own master-key, the other was quickly in old Antony's hand, and she out once more in the passage, locking the door behind her; sure of being able to restore the key to its place, before it should be missed by the Reverend Mother.

Sister Mary Antony slipped unseen past the Refectory and into the kitchens. Once there, she fussed and scolded and made her presence felt, implying that she had been waiting, a good hour gone, for the thing for which she had but that moment asked.

The younger lay-sisters might make no retort; but Sister Mary Martha presently asked: "What have you been doing since Vespers, Sister Antony?"

By aid of the wits our Lady had sharpened, old Antony, at that moment, realised that sometimes, when you needs must deceive, there is nothing so deceptive as the actual truth.

"Listening to a wondrous romantic tale," she made answer, "told by the Knight of the Bloody Vest."

"You verily are foolish about that robin, Sister Antony," remarked Mary Martha; "and you will take your death of cold, sitting out in the garden in the damp, after sunset."

"Well—so long as I take only that which is mine own, others have no cause to grumble," snapped Mary Antony, and turned her mind upon the making of a savoury broth, favoured by the Reverend Mother.

And all the while the Devil was whispering in the old woman's ear: "She will not return. . . . Make thy broth, fool; but she will not be here to drink it. . . . The World and the Flesh have called; the Reverend Mother will not come back. . . . Stir the broth well, but flavour it to thine own taste. Thou wilt sup on it thyself this night. When the World and the Flesh call loudly enough, the best of women go to the Devil."

"Liar!" said Mary Antony, brandishing her wooden spoon. "Get thee behind me—nay, rather, get thee in front of me! I have had thee skulking behind me long enough. Also in front of me, just now, being into the fire, thou wilt feel at home, Master Devil! Only, put not thy tail into the Reverend Mother's broth."

When the White Ladies passed up from the Refectory, Mary Antony chanced to be polishing the panelling around the picture of Saint Mary Magdalen, beside the door of the Reverend Mother's cell.

Presently Sister Mary Rebecca, arriving, lifted her hand to knock.

"Stay!" whispered Mary Antony. "The Reverend Mother may not be disturbed."

Sister Mary Rebecca veiled her scowl with a smile.

"And wherefore not, good Sister Antony?"

"'Wherefore not' is not my business," retorted old Antony, as rudely as she knew how. "It may be for special study; it may be for an hour of extra devotion; it may be only the very natural desire for a little respite from the sight of two such ugly faces as yours and mine. But, be the reason what it may, Reverend Mother has locked her door, and sees nobody this even." After which old Antony proceeded to polish the outside of the Reverend Mother's door panels.

Sister Mary Rebecca lifted her knuckles to rap; but old Antony's not over clean clout was pushed each time between Sister Mary Rebecca's tap, and the woodwork.

Muttering concerning the report she would make to the Prioress in the morning, Sister Mary Rebecca went to her cell.

When all was quiet, when every door was closed, the old lay-sister crept into the cloisters and, crouching in an archway just beyond the flight of steps leading to the underground way, watched and waited.

Storm clouds were gathering again, black on a purple sky. The after-glow in the west had faded. It was dark in the cloisters. Thunder growled in the distance; an owl hooted in the Pieman's tree.

Mary Antony's old bones ached sorely, and her heart failed her. She had sat so long in cramped positions, and she had not tasted food since the mid-day meal.

The Devil drew near, as he is wont to do, when those who have fasted long, seek to keep vigil.

"The Reverend Mother will not return," he whispered. "What wait you for?"

"Be off!" said Mary Antony. "I am too old to be keeping company, even with thee. Also Sister Mary Rebecca awaits thee in her cell."

"The Reverend Mother ever walked with her head among the stars," sneered the Devil. "Why do the highest fall the lowest, when temptation comes?"

"Ask that of Mother Sub-Prioress," said Mary Antony, "next time she bids thee to supper."

Then she clasped her old hands upon her breast; for, very softly, in the lock below, a key turned.

Steps, felt rather than heard, passed up into the cloister.

Then, in the dim light, the tall figure of the Prioress moved noiselessly over the flagstones, passed through the open door and up the deserted passage.

Peering eagerly forward, the old lay-sister saw the Prioress pause outside the door of her chamber, lift her master-key, unlock the door, and pass within.

As the faint sound of the closing of the door reached her straining ears, old Mary Antony began to sob, helplessly.



CHAPTER XVI

THE ECHO OF WILD VOICES

When the Prioress entered her cell, she stood for a moment bewildered by the rapid walk in the darkness. She could hardly realise that the long strain was over; that she had safely regained her chamber.

All was as she had left it. Apparently she had not been missed, and had returned unobserved. Hugh was by now safely in the hostel at Worcester. None need ever know that he had been here.

None need ever know—Yet, alas, it was that knowledge which held the Prioress rooted to the spot on which she stood, gazing round her cell.

Hugh had been here; and when he was here, her one desire had been to get him speedily away.

But now?

Dumb with the pain of a great yearning, she looked about her.

Yes; just there he had stood; here he had knelt, and there he had stood again.

This calm monastic air had vibrated to the fervour of his voice.

It had grown calm again.

Would her poor heart in time also grow calm? Would her lips stop trembling, and cease to feel the fire of his?

Yet for one moment, only, her mind dwelt upon herself. Then all thought of self was merged in the realisation of his loneliness, his suffering, his bitter disillusion. To have found her dead, would have been hard; to have lost her living, was almost past bearing. Would it cost him his faith in God, in truth, in purity, in honour?

The Prioress felt the insistent need of prayer. But passing the gracious image of the Virgin and Child, she cast herself down at the foot of the crucifix.

She had seen a strong man in agony, nailed, by the cruel iron of circumstance, to the cross-beams of sacrifice and surrender. To the suffering Saviour she turned, instinctively, for help and consolation.

Thus speedily had her prayer of the previous night been granted. The pierced feet of our dear Lord, crucified, had become more to her than the baby feet of the Infant Jesus, on His Mother's knee.

Yet, even as she knelt—supplicating, interceding, adoring—there echoed in her memory the wicked shriek of Mary Seraphine: "A dead God cannot help me! I want life, not death!" followed almost instantly by Hugh's stern question: "Is this religion?"

Truly, of late, wild voices had taken liberty of speech in the cell of the Prioress, and had left their impious utterances echoing behind them.



CHAPTER XVII

THE DIMNESS OF MARY ANTONY

The Prioress had been back in her cell for nearly an hour, when a gentle tap came on the door.

"Enter," commanded the Prioress, and Mary Antony appeared, bearing broth and bread, fruit and a cup of wine.

The Prioress sat at her table, parchment and an open missal before her. Her face was very white; also there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. She did not smile at sight of old Antony, thus laden.

"How now, Antony?" she said, almost sternly. "I did not bid thee to bring me food."

"Reverend Mother," said the old lay-sister, in a voice which strove to be steady, yet quavered; "for long hours you have studied, not heeding that the evening meal was over. Chide not old Antony for bringing you some of that broth, which you like the best. You will not sleep unless you eat."

The Prioress looked at her uncomprehendingly; as if, for the moment, words conveyed no meaning to her mind. Then she saw those old hands trembling, and a sudden flood of colour flushed the pallor of her face.

This sweet stirring of fresh life within her own heart gave her to see, in the old woman's untiring devotion, a human element hitherto unperceived. It brought a rush of comfort, in her sadness.

She closed the volume, and pushed aside the parchment. "How kind of thee, dear Antony, to take so much thought for me. Place the bowls on the table. . . . Now draw up that stool, and stay near me while I sup. I am weary this night, and shall like thy company."

Had the golden gates of heaven opened before her, and Saint Peter himself invited her to enter, Sister Mary Antony would not have been more astonished and certainly could hardly have been more gratified. It was a thing undreamed of, that she should be bidden to sit with the Reverend Mother in her cell.

Drawing the carven stool two feet from the wall, Mary Antony took her seat upon it.

"Nearer, Antony, nearer," said the Prioress. "Place the stool here, close beside the corner of my table. I have much to say to thee, and would wish to speak low."

Truly Sister Antony found herself in the seventh heaven!

Yet, quietly observing, the Prioress could not fail to note the drawn weariness on the old face, the yellow pallor of the wizen skin, which usually wore the bright tint of a russet apple.

The Prioress took a portion of the broth; then pushed the bowl from her, and turned to the fruit.

"There, Antony," she said. "The broth is excellent; but I have enough. Finish it thyself. It will pleasure me to see thee enjoy it."

Faint and thankful, old Antony seized the bowl. And as she drank the broth, her shrewd eyes twinkled. For had not the Devil said she would sup on it herself; knowing that much, yet not knowing that she would receive it from the hand of the Reverend Mother?

It has been ever so, from Eden onwards, when the Devil tries his hand at prophecy.

For a while the Prioress talked lightly, of flowers and birds; of the garden and the orchard; of the gift of three fine salmon, sent to them by the good monks of the Priory at Worcester.

But, presently, when the broth was finished and a faint colour tinted the old cheeks, she passed on to the storm and the sunset, the rolling thunder and the torrents of rain. Then of a sudden she said:

"By the way, Antony, hast thou made mention, to any, of thy fearsome tale of the walking through the cloisters, in line with the White Ladies, of the Spectre of the saintly Sister Agatha?"

"Nay, Reverend Mother," said Mary Antony. "Did not you forbid me to speak of it?"

"True," said the Prioress. "Well, Antony, I went in the storm, to look for her; but—I found not Sister Agatha."

"That I already knew," said Mary Antony, nodding her head sagaciously.

The Prioress cast upon her a quick, anxious look.

"What mean you, Antony?"

Then old Mary Antony fell upon her knees, and kissed the hem of the Prioress's robe. "Oh, Reverend Mother," she stammered, "I have a confession to make!"

"Make it," said the Prioress, with white lips.

"Reverend Mother, when you sent me from you, after making my report, I went first, as commanded, to the kitchens. But afterward, in my cell, I found these."

Mary Antony opened her wallet and drew out the linen bag in which she kept her peas. Shaking its contents into the palm of her hand, she held out six peas to view.

"Reverend Mother," she said, "there were twenty-five in the bag. I thought I had counted twenty out into my hand; so when all the peas had dropped and yet another holy Lady passed, I thought that made twenty-one. But when I found six peas in my bag, I became aware of my folly. I had but counted nineteen, and had no pea to let fall for the twentieth holy Lady. Yet I ran in haste with my false report, when, had I but thought to look in my wallet, all would have been made clear. Will the Reverend Mother forgive old Mary Antony?"

She shot a quick glance at the Prioress; and, at sight of the immense relief on that loved face, felt ready for any punishment with which it might please Heaven to visit her deceit.

"Dear Antony," began the Reverend Mother, smiling.

"Dear Antony—" she said, and laughed aloud.

Then she placed her hand beneath the old woman's arm, and gently raised her. "Mistakes arise so easily," she said. "With the best of intentions, we all sometimes make mistakes. There is nothing to forgive, my Antony."

"I am old, and dim, and stupid," said the lay-sister, humbly; "but I have begged of our sweet Lady to sharpen the old wits of Mary Antony."

After which statement, made in a voice of humble penitence, Mary Antony, unseen by the thankful Prioress, did give a knowing wink with the eye next to the Madonna. Our blessed Lady smiled. The sweet Babe looked merry. The Prioress rose, a great light of relief illumining her weary face.

"Let us to bed, dear Antony; then, with the dawn of a new day we shall all arise with hearts refreshed and wits more keen. So now—God rest thee."

Left alone, the Prioress knelt long in prayer before the shrine of the Madonna. Once, she reached out her right hand to the empty space where Hugh had knelt, striving to feel remembrance of his strong clasp.

At length she sought her couch. But sleep refused to come, and presently she crept back in the white moonlight, and kneeling pressed her lips to the stone on which Hugh had kneeled; then fled, in shame that our Lady should see such weakness; and dared not glance toward the shadowy form of the dead Christ, crucified. For with the coming of Love to seek her, Life had come; and where Life enters, Death is put to flight; even as before the triumphant march of the rising sun, darkness and shadows flee away.

Yet, even then, our Lady gently smiled, and the Babe on her knees looked merry.



CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE CATHEDRAL CRYPT

On the day following, in the afternoon, shortly before the hour of Vespers, a stretcher was carried through the streets of Worcester, by four men-at-arms wearing the livery of Sir Hugh d'Argent.

Beside it walked the Knight, with bent head, his eyes upon the ground.

The body of the man upon the stretcher was covered by a fine linen sheet, over which lay a blue cloak, richly embroidered with silver. His head was swathed in a bandage of many folds, partially concealing the face.

The little procession passed through the Precincts; then entered the Cathedral by the great door leading into the nave.

Here a monk stood, taking careful note of all who passed in or out of the building. As the stretcher approached, he stepped forward with hand upraised.

There was a pause in the measured tramp of the bearers' feet.

The Knight lifted his eyes, and seeing the monk barring the way, he drew forth a parchment and tendered it.

"I have the leave of the Lord Bishop, good father," he said, "to carry this man upon the stretcher daily into the crypt, and there to let him lie before the shrine of Saint Oswald, during the hour of Vespers; from which daily pilgrimage and prayer, we hope a great recovery and restoration."

At sight of the Lord Bishop's signature and seal, the monk made deep obeisance, and hastened to call the Sacristan, bidding him attend the Knight on his passage to the crypt and give him every facility in placing the sick man there where he might most conveniently lie before the holy altar of the blessed Saint Oswald.

So presently, the stretcher being safely deposited, the men-at-arms stood each against a pillar, and the Knight folded back the coverings, in order that the man who lay beneath, might have sight of the altar and the shrine.

As the Knight stood gazing through the vista of many columns, he found the old Sacristan standing at his elbow.

"Most worshipful Knight," said the old man, with deference, "our Lord Bishop's mandate supersedes all rules. Were it not so, it would be my duty to clear the crypt before Vespers. See you that stairway yonder, beneath the arch? Not many minutes hence, up those steps will pass the holy nuns from the Convent of the White Ladies at Whytstone—noble ladies all, and of great repute for saintliness. Daily they come to Vespers by a secret way; entering the crypt, they pass across to a winding stair in the wall, and so arrive at a gallery above the choir, from which they can, unseen, hear the chanting of the monks. I must to my duties above. Will you undertake, Sir Knight, that your men go not nigh where the White Ladies pass, nor in any way molest them?"

"None shall stir hand or foot, as they pass, nor in any way molest them," said the Knight.

Hugh d'Argent was kneeling before the altar, his folded hands resting upon the cross on the hilt of his sword, when the faint sound of a key turning in a distant lock, caught his ear.

Then up the steps and across the crypt passed, in silent procession, the White Ladies of Worcester.

There was something ghostly and awe-inspiring about those veiled figures, moving noiselessly among the pillars in the dimly-lighted crypt; then vanishing, one by one, up the winding stairway in the wall.

The Knight did not stir. He stayed upon his knees, his hands clasped upon his sword-hilt; but he followed each silent figure with his eyes.

The last had barely disappeared from view when, from above, came the solemn chanting of monks and choristers.

This harmony, descending from above, seemed to uplift the soul all the more readily, because the sacred words and noble sounds reached the listener, unhampered by association with the personalities, either youthful or ponderous, of the singers. All that was of the earth remained unseen; while that which was so near akin to heaven, entered the listening ear.

Kneeling in lowly reverence with bowed head, the Knight found himself wondering whether the ascending sounds reached that distant gallery in the clerestory where the White Ladies knelt, as greatly softened, sweetened, and enriched, as they now came stealing down into the crypt. Were the hearts of those veiled worshippers also lifted heavenward; or—being already above the music—did the ascending voices rather tend to draw them down to earth?

Upon which the Knight fell to meditating as to whether that which is higher always uplifts; whereas that which is lower tends to debase. Certainly the upward look betokens hope and joy; while the downward casting of the eye, is sign of sorrow and despondency.

"Levavi oculos meos in montes"—chanted the monks, in the choir above.

He certainly looked high when he lifted the eyes of his insistent desire to the Prioress of the White Ladies. So high did he lift them, and so unattainable was she, that most men would say he might as well ask the silvery moon, sailing across the firmament, to come down and be his bride!

He had held her high, in her maiden loveliness and purity. But now that he had found her, a noble woman, matured, ripened by sorrow rather than hardened, yet firm in her determination to die to the world, to deny self, crucify the flesh, and resist the Devil—he felt indeed that she walked among the stars.

Yet he could not bring himself to regard her as unattainable. It had ever been his firm belief that a man could win any woman upon whom he wholly set his heart—always supposing that no other man had already won her. And this woman had been his own betrothed, when treachery intervened and sundered them. Yet that did not now count for much.

He had left a girl; he had come back to find a woman. That woman had infinitely more to give; but it would be infinitely more difficult to persuade her to give it.

At the close of their interview in her cell, the day before, all hope had left him. But later, as they paced together in the darkness, hope had revived.

The strange isolation in which they then found themselves—between locked doors a mile apart, earth above, earth beneath, earth all around them, they two alone, entombed yet vividly conscious of glowing life—had brought her nearer to him; and when at last the moment of parting arrived and again he faced it as final, there had come—all unheralded—the sudden wonder of her surrender.

True, she had afterwards withdrawn herself; true, she had sent him from her; true, he had gone, without a word. But that was because no promise could have been so binding, as that silent embrace.

He had gone from her on the impulse of the sweetness of obeying instantly her slightest wish; buoyed up by the certainty that no Convent walls could long divide lips which had met and clung with such a passion of mutual need.

That evening when, after much adventure, he at length gained the streets of the city, he had trodden them with the mien of a victor.

That night he had slept as he had not slept since the hour when his whole life had been embittered by a lying letter and a traitorous tongue.

But morning, alas, had brought its doubts; noon, its dark uncertainties; and as the hour of Vespers drew near, he had realised, with the helpless misery of despair, that it was madness to expect the Prioress of the White Ladies to break her vows, leave her Nunnery, and fly with him to Warwick.

Yet he carried out his plan, and kept to his undertaking, though here, in the calm atmosphere of the crypt, holy chanting descending from above, the remembrance still with him of the aloofness of those stately white figures gliding between the pillars in the distance, he faced the madness of his hopes, and the mournful prospect of a life of loneliness.

Presently he arose, crossed the crypt, and took up his position behind a pillar to the right of the exit from the winding stair.

The chanting ceased. Vespers were over.

He heard the sound of soft footsteps drawing nearer.

The White Ladies were coming.

They came.

The Knight was not kept long in suspense. The Prioress walked first. Her face was hidden, but her height and carriage revealed her to her lover. She looked neither to right nor left but, turning away from the pillar behind which the Knight stood concealed, crossed to the steps leading down to the subterranean way, and so passed swiftly out of sight.

The Knight stood motionless until all had appeared, and had vanished once more from view.

One, tall but ungainly, crooked of body, and doubtless short of vision, missed her way among the columns and passed perilously near to the Knight. With his long arm, he could have clasped her. How old Antony would have chuckled, could she but have known! "Sister Mary Rebecca embraced by the Knight of the Bloody Vest? Nay then; the Saints forbid!"

The stretcher, borne by four men-at-arms, passed out from the Cathedral.

The Knight walked beside it, with bent head, and eyes upon the ground.

As it passed through the Precincts, the Lord Bishop himself rode out on his white palfrey, on his way to the Nunnery at Whytstone.

The Knight, being downhearted, did not lift his eyes.

The Bishop looked, kindly, upon the stretcher and upon the Knight's dark face.

The Bishop had known Hugh d'Argent as a boy.

He grieved to see him thus in sorrow.

Yet the Bishop smiled as he rode on.

Perhaps he did not put much faith in the efficacy of relics, for so heavily bandaged a broken head as that upon the stretcher.

For there was a whimsical tenderness about the Bishop's smile.



CHAPTER XIX

THE BISHOP PUTS ON HIS BIRETTA

Symon, Lord Bishop of Worcester, having received a letter from the Prioress of the White Ladies, praying him for an interview at his leisure, sent back at once a most courtly and gracious answer, that he would that same day give himself the pleasure of visiting the Reverend Mother, at the Nunnery, an hour after Vespers.

The great gates were thrown open, and the Bishop rode his palfrey into the courtyard.

The Prioress herself met him at the door and, kneeling, kissed his ring; then led him through the lower hall, where the nuns knelt to receive his blessing, and up the wide staircase, to the privacy of her own cell.

There she presently unfolded to him the history of her difficulties with that wayward little nun, Sister Mary Seraphine.

"But the point which I chiefly desire to lay before you, Reverend Father," concluded the Prioress, "is this: If the neighing of a palfrey calls more loudly to her than the voice of God; if her mind is still set upon the things of the world; if she professed without a true vocation, merely because she wished to be the central figure of a great ceremony, yet was all the while expecting a man to intervene and carry her off; if all this bespeaks her true state of heart, then to my mind there comes the question: Is she doing good, either to herself or to others, by belonging to our Order? Would she not be better away?

"My lord, I fear I greatly shock you by naming such a possibility. But truly I am pursued by the remembrance of that young thing, beating the floor with her hands, and singing a mournful dirge about the crimson trappings of her palfrey. And, alas! when I reasoned with her and exhorted, she broke out, as I have told you, Reverend Father, into grievous blasphemy—for which she was severely dealt with by Mother Sub-Prioress, and has since been outwardly amenable to rules and discipline.

"But, though she may outwardly conform, how about her inward state? Well I know that our vows are lifelong vows; all who belong to our Order are wedded to Heaven; we are thankful to know that the calm of the Cloister shall be exchanged only for the greater peace of Paradise. But, supposing a young heart has mistaken its vocation; supposing the voice of an earthly lover calls when it is too late; would it seem right or possible to you, Reverend Father, to grant any sort of absolution from the vows; tacitly to allow the opening of the cage door, that the little foolish bird might, if it wished, escape into the liberty for which it chafes and sighs?"

The Bishop sat in the Spanish chair, drawn up near the oriel window, so that he could either gaze at the glories of the distant sunset, or, by slightly turning his head, look on the beautiful but grave face of the Prioress, seated before him.

While she was speaking he watched her keenly, with those bright searching eyes, so much more youthful than aught else about him. But now that he must make reply, he looked away to the sunset.

The light shone on the plain gold cross at his breast, and on the violet silk of his cassock. His face, against the background of the black Spanish wood, looked strangely white and thin; strong in contour, with a virile strength; in expression, sensitive as a woman's. He had removed his biretta, and placed it upon the table. His silvery hair rolled back from his forehead in silky waves. His was the look of the saint and the scholar, almost of the mystic—save for the tender humour in those keen blue eyes, gleaming like beacon lights from beneath the level eyebrows; eyes which had won the confidence of many a man who else had not dared unfold his very human story, to one of such saintly aspect as Symon, Bishop of Worcester. They were turned toward the sunset, as he made answer to the Prioress.

"The little foolish bird," said the Bishop—and he spoke in that gently musing tone, which conveys to the mind of the hearer a sense of infinite leisure in which to weigh and consider the subject in hand—"The little foolish bird might soon wish herself back in the safety of the cage. On such as she, the cruel hawks of life do love to prey. Absorbed in the contemplation of her own charms, she sees not, until too late, the dangers which surround her. Such little foolish birds, my daughter, are best in the safe shelter of the cloister. Moreover, of what value are they in the world? None. If Popinjays wed them, they do but hatch out broods of foolish little Popinjays. If true men, caught by mere surface beauty, wed them, it can mean naught save heartbreak and sorrow, and deterioration of the race. Women of finer mould"—for an instant the Bishop's eyes strayed from the sunset—"are needed, to be the mothers of the men who, in the years to come, are to make England great. Nay, rather than let one escape, I would shut up all the little foolish birds in a Nunnery, with our excellent Sub-Prioress to administer necessary discipline."

With his elbows resting upon the arms of the chair, the Bishop put his fingers together, so that the tips met most precisely; then bent his lips to them, and looked at the Prioress.

She, troubled and sick at heart, lifting deep pools of silent misery, met the merry twinkle in the Bishop's eyes, and sat astonished. What was it like? Why it was like the song of a robin, perched on a frosty bough, on Christmas morning! It was so young and gay; so jocund, and so hopeful.

Meeting it, the Prioress realised fully, what she had many times half-divined, that the revered and reverend Prelate sitting opposite, for all his robes and dignity, his panoply of Church and State, had the heart of a merry schoolboy out on a holiday.

For the moment she felt much older than the Bishop, infinitely sadder; more travel-worn and worldly-wise.

Then she looked at the silver hair; the firm mouth, with a shrewd curve at either corner; the thoughtful brow.

And then she looked at the Bishop's ring.

The Bishop wore a remarkable ring; not a signet, but a large gem of great value, beautifully cut in many facets, and clear set in massive gold. This precious stone, said to be a chrysoprasus, had been given to the Bishop by a Russian prince, in acknowledgment of a great service rendered him when he came on pilgrimage to Rome. The rarity of these gems arose partly from the fact that the sovereigns of Russia had decreed that they should be held exclusively for royal ornament, forbidding their use or purchase by people of lesser degree.

But its beauty and its rarity were not the only qualities of the precious stone in the Bishop's ring. The strangest thing about it was that its colour varied, according to the Bishop's mood and surroundings.

When the Prioress looked up and met the gay twinkle, the stone in the Bishop's ring was a heavenly blue, the colour of forget-me-nots beside a meadow brook, or the clear azure of the sky above a rosy sunset. But presently he passed his hand over his eyes, as if to shut out some bright vision, and to turn his mind to more sober thought; and, at that moment, the stone in his ring gleamed a pale opal, threaded with flashes of green.

The Prioress returned to the subject, with studied seriousness.

"I did not suppose, Reverend Father, that it was to be of any advantage to the world, that Sister Seraphine should return to it. The advantage was to be to her, and also to this whole Community, well rid of the presence of one who finds our sacred exercises irksome; our beautiful Nunnery, a prison; her cell, a living tomb. She cries out for life. 'I want to live,' she said, 'I am young, I am gay, I am beautiful! I want life.'"

"To such as Sister Seraphine," remarked the Bishop, gravely, "life is but a mirror which reflects themselves. Other forms and faces may flit by, in the background; dimly seen, scarcely noticed. There is but one face and form occupying the entire foreground. Life is, to such, the mirror which ministers to vanity. Should a husband appear in the picture, he is soon relegated to the background, receiving only occasional glances over the shoulder. If children dance into the field of vision, they are petulantly driven elsewhere. Tell me? Did Sister Seraphine's desire for life include any expression of the desire to give life?"

Involuntarily the Prioress glanced at the sweet Babe upon the Virgin's knees.

"No," she said, very low.

"I thought not," said the Bishop. "Self-centred, shallow natures are not capable of the sublime passion for motherhood; partly, no doubt, because they themselves possess no life worth passing on."

The Prioress rose quickly and, moving to the window, flung open a second casement. It was imperative, at that moment, to hide her face; for the uncontrollable flood of emotion at her heart, could scarce fail to send a tell-tale wave to disturb the calm of her countenance.

Whereupon the Bishop turned, to see at what the Prioress had glanced before answering his question.

"No," he mused, as she resumed her seat, his eyes upon the tree-tops beyond the casement, "the Seraphines have not the instinct of motherhood. And the future greatness of our race depends upon those noble women who are able to pass on to their sons and daughters a life which is true, and brave, and worthy; a life whose foundation is self-sacrifice, whose cornerstone is loyalty, and from whose summit waves the banner of unsullied love of hearth and home.

"A woman with the true instinct of motherhood cannot see a little child without yearning to clasp it to her bosom. When she finds her mate, she thinks more of being the mother of his children than the object of his devotion, because the Self in her is subservient to the maternal instinct for self-sacrifice. These women are pure as snow, and they hold their men to the highest and the best. Such women are needed in the world. Our Lady knoweth, I speak not lightly, unadvisedly nor wantonly; but were Seraphine such an one as this, I should say; 'Leave the door on the latch. Without permission, yet without reproach—let her go.'"

"Were Seraphine such an one as that, my lord," said the Prioress, firmly, "then would there be no question of her going. If the cornerstone of character be loyalty, the very essential of loyalty is the keeping of vows."

"Quite so," murmured the Bishop; "undoubtedly, my daughter. Unless, by some strange fatality, those vows were made under a total misapprehension. You tell me Sister Seraphine expected a man to intervene?"

The Bishop sat up, of a sudden keenly alert. His eyes, no longer humorous and tender, became searching and bright—young still, but with the fire of youth, rather than its merriment. As he leaned forward in his chair, his hands gripped his knees. Looking at his ring the Prioress saw the stone the colour of red wine.

"What if, after all, I can help you in this," he said. "What if I can throw light upon the whole situation, and find a cause for the little foolish bird's restless condition, proving to you that she may have heard something more than the mere neighing of a palfrey! Listen!

"A Knight arrived in this city, rather more than a month ago; a very noble Knight, splendid to look upon; one of our bravest Crusaders. He arrived here in sore anguish of heart. His betrothed had been taken from him during his absence from England, waging war against the Turks in Palestine—taken from him by a most dastardly and heartless plot. He made many inquiries concerning this Nunnery and Order, rode north again on urgent business, but returned, with a large retinue, five days since."

The Prioress did not stir. She maintained her quiet posture as an attentive listener. But her face grew as white as her wimple, and she folded her hands to steady their trembling.

But the Bishop, now eagerly launched, had no interest in pallor, or possible palsy. His vigorous words cut the calm atmosphere. The gem on his finger sparkled like red wine in a goblet.

"I knew him of old," he said; "knew him as a high-spirited lad, yet loving, and much beloved. He came to me, in his grief, distraught with anguish of heart, and told me this tale of treachery and wrong. Never did I hear of such a network of evil device, such a tragedy of loving hearts sundered. And when at last he returned to this land, he found that the girl whom he had thought false, thinking him so, had entered a Nunnery. Also he seemed convinced that she was to be found among our White Ladies of Worcester. Now tell me, dear Prioress, think you she could be Seraphine?"

The Prioress smiled; and truly it was a very creditable smile for a face which might have been carved in marble.

"From my knowledge of Sister Mary Seraphine," she said, "it seems unlikely that for loss of her, so noble a Knight as you describe would be distraught with anguish of heart."

"Nay, there I do not agree," said the Bishop. "It is ever opposites which attract. The tall wed the short; the stout, the lean; the dark, the fair; the grave, the gay. Wherefore my stern Crusader may be breaking his heart for your foolish little bird."

"I do not think so," said the Prioress, shortly; then hastened to add: "Not that I would presume to differ from you, Reverend Father. Doubtless you are better versed in such matters than I. But—if it be as you suppose—what measures do you suggest? How am I to deal with Sister Mary Seraphine?"

The Bishop leaned forward and whispered, though not another soul was within hearing; but at this juncture in the conversation, a whisper was both dramatic and effective. Also, when he leaned forward, he could almost hear the angry beating of the heart of the Prioress.

The Bishop held the Prioress in high regard, and loved not to distress her. But he did not think it right that a woman should have such complete mastery over herself, and therefore over others. A fine quality in a man, may be a blemish in a woman. For which reason the Bishop leaned forward and whispered.

"Let her fly, my daughter; let her fly. If his arms await her, she will not have far to go, nor many dangers to face. Her lover will know how to guard his own."

"My lord," said the Prioress, now flushed with anger, "you amaze me! Am I to understand that you would have me open the Convent door, so that a renegade nun may escape to her lover? Or perhaps, my lord, it would better meet your ideas if I bid the porteress stand wide the great gates, so that this high-spirited Knight may ride in and carry off the nun he desires, in sight of all! My Lord Bishop! You rule in Worcester and in the cities of the diocese. But I rule in this Nunnery; and while I rule here, such a thing as this shall never be."

The Prioress flashed and quivered; rose to her feet and towered; flung her arms wide, and paced the floor.

"The Knight has bewitched you, my lord," she said. "You forget the rules of our holy Church. You fail in your trust toward the women who look to you as their spiritual Father and guide."

The Prioress walked up and down the cell, and each time she passed her chair she wheeled, and gripping the back with her strong fingers, shook it. Not being able to shake the Bishop, she needs must shake something.

"You amaze me!" she said. "Truly, my lord, you amaze me!"

The Bishop put on his biretta.

Only once before, in his eventful life, had he made a woman as angry as this. Very young he was, then; and the angry woman had seized him by his hair.

The Bishop did not really think the Prioress would do this; but it amused him to fancy he was afraid, and to put on his biretta.

Then, as he leaned back in his chair, and his finger tips met, the stone in his ring was blue again, and his eyes were more than ever the eyes of a merry schoolboy out on a holiday.

Yet, presently, he sought to calm the tempest he had raised.

"My daughter," he said, "I did but agree to that which you yourself suggested. Did you not ask whether it would seem to me right or possible to grant absolution from her vows, tacitly to allow the opening of the cage door, that the little foolish bird might, if she wished it, escape? Why this exceeding indignation, when I do but yield to your arguments and fall in with your suggestions?"

"I did not suggest that a lover's arms were awaiting one of my nuns," said the angry Prioress.

"You did not mention arms," replied the Bishop, gently; "but you most explicitly mentioned a voice. 'Supposing the voice of an earthly lover calls,' you said. And—having admitted that I am better versed in such matters than you—you must forgive me, dear Prioress, if I amaze you further by acquainting you with the undoubted fact, recognised, in the outer world, as beyond dispute, that when a lover's voice calls, a lover's arms are likely to be waiting. Earthly lovers, my daughter, by no means resemble those charming cherubs which you may have observed on the carved woodwork in our Cathedral. Otherwise you might have just a voice, flanked by seraphic wings. Some such fanciful creation must have been in your mind for Sister Mary Seraphine; for, until I made mention of the noble Knight who had arrived in Worcester distraught with anguish of heart by reason of his loss, you had decided leanings toward tacitly allowing flight. Therefore it was not the fact of the broken vows, but the idea of Seraphine wedded to the brave Crusader, which so greatly roused your ire."

The Prioress stood silent. Her hot anger cooled, enveloped in the chill mantle of self-revelation and self-scorn.

It seemed to her that the gentle words of the Bishop indeed expressed the truth far more correctly than he knew.

The thought of Hugh, consoling himself with some foolish, vain, unworthy, little Seraphine, had stung with intolerable pain.

Yet, how should she, the cause of his despair, begrudge him any comfort he might find in the love of another?

Then, suddenly, the Prioress knelt at the feet of the Bishop.

"Forgive me, most Reverend Father," she said. "I did wrong to be angry."

Symon of Worcester extended his hand, and the Prioress kissed the ring. As she withdrew her lips from the precious stone, she saw it blood-red and sparkling, as the juice of purple grapes in a goblet.

The Bishop laid his biretta once more upon the table, and smiled very tenderly on the Prioress, as he motioned her to rise from her knees and to resume her seat.

"You did right to be angry, my daughter," he said. "You were not angry with me, nor with the brave Crusader, nor with the foolish Seraphine. Your anger, all unconsciously, was aroused by a system, a method of life which is contrary to Nature, and therefore surely at variance with the will of God. I have long had my doubts concerning these vows of perpetual celibacy for women. For men, it is different. The creative powers in a man, if denied their natural functions, stir him to great enterprise, move him to beget fine phantasies, creations of his brain, children of his intellect. If he stamp not his image on brave sons and fair daughters, he leaves his mark on life in many other ways, both brave and fair. But it is not so with woman; in the very nature of things it cannot be. Methinks these Nunneries would serve a better purpose were they schools from which to send women forth into the world to be good wives and mothers, rather than store-houses filled with sad samples of Nature's great purposes deliberately unfulfilled."

The merry schoolboy look had vanished. The Bishop's eyes were stern and searching; yet he looked not on the Prioress as he spoke.

Amazement was writ larger than ever, on her face; but she held herself well under control.

"Such views, my lord, if freely expressed and adopted, would change the entire monastic system."

"I know it," said the Bishop. "And I would not express them, saving to you and to one other, to whom I also talk freely. But the older I grow, the more clearly do I see that systems are man-made, and therefore often mistaken, injurious, pernicious. But Nature is Divine. Those who live in close touch with Nature, who rule their lives by Nature's rules, do not stray far from the Divine plan of the Creator. But when man takes upon himself to say 'Thou shalt,' or 'Thou shalt not,' quickly confusion enters. A false premise becomes the starting-point; and the goal, if it stop short of perdition, is, at best, folly and failure."

The Bishop paused.

The eyes of the woman before him were dark with sorrow, regret, and the dawning of a great fear. Presently she spoke.

"To say these things here, my lord, is to say them too late."

"It is never too late," replied Symon of Worcester. "'Too late' tolls the knell of the coward heart. If we find out a mistake while we yet walk the earth where we made it, it is not too late to amend it."

"Think you so, Reverend Father? Then what do you counsel me to do—with Seraphine?"

"Speak to her gently, and with great care and prudence. Say to her much of that which you have said to me, and a little of that which I have said to you, but expressed in such manner as will be suited to a foolish mind. You and I can hurl bricks at one another, my dear Prioress, and be the better for the exercise. But we must not fling at little Seraphine aught harder than a pillow of down. Empty heads, like empty eggshells, are soon broken. Tell her you have consulted me concerning her desire to return to the world; and that I, being lenient, and holding somewhat wider views on this subject than the majority of prelates, also being well acquainted with the mind of His Holiness the Pope concerning those who embrace the religious life for reasons other than a true vocation, have promised to arrange the matter of a dispensation. But add that there must be no possibility of any scandal connected with the Nunnery. Since the Lady Wulgeova, mother of Bishop Wulstan, of blessed memory, took the veil here a century and a half ago, this house has ever been above reproach. You will tacitly allow her to slip away; and, once away, I will set matters right for her. But nothing must transpire which could stumble or scandalise the other members of the Community. The peculiar circumstances which the Knight made known to me—always, of course, without making any mention of the name of Seraphine—can hardly have occurred in any other case. It is not likely, for instance, that our worthy Sub-Prioress was torn by treachery from the arms of a despairing lover; and she would undoubtedly share your very limiting ideas of a lover's physical qualities and requirements; possibly not even allowing him a voice.