"Then listen, dear Father. (Ah, how often have I wished to tell you this!) Soon after you were gone, that starling rudely taught me a hard lesson. Gaining strength, one day he left the courtyard, ran through the buttery, and wandered in the garden. I followed, whistling and watching. It greatly delighted the bird to find himself on turf. There had been rain. The grass was wet. Presently a rash worm, gliding from its hole, adventured forth. The starling ran to the worm, calling it 'Hugh.' 'Hugh! Hugh!' he cried, and tugged it from the earth. 'Hugh! Hugh!' and pecked it, where helpless it lay squirming. Then, shouting 'Hugh!' once more, gobbled it down. I stood with heavy heart, for I had thought that starling loved me with a true, personal love, when he ran at my approach shouting my name. Yet now I knew it was the food I carried, he called 'Hugh'; it was the food, not me, he loved. Glad was I when, his wing grown strong, he flew away. It cut me to the heart to hear the worms, the grubs, the snails, the caterpillars, all called 'Hugh'!"

The Bishop smiled, then sighed. "Poor little eager heart," he said, "learning so hard a lesson, all alone! Yet is it a lesson, lad, sooner or later learned in sadness by all generous hearts. . . . And now, leaving the past, with all its memories, let us return to the present, and face the uncertain future. Also, dear Knight, I must ask you to remember, even when we are alone, that your old friend, Father Gervaise, in his brown habit, lies at the bottom of the ocean; yet that your new friend, Symon of Worcester, holds you and your interests very near his heart."

The Bishop put out his hand.

Hugh seized and kissed it, knowing this was his farewell to Father Gervaise.

Then he rose to his feet.

The Bishop said nothing; but an indefinable change came over him. Again he extended his hand.

The Knight kneeled, and kissed the Bishop's ring.

"I thank you, my lord," he said, "for your great trust in me. I will not prove unworthy." With this he went back to his seat.

The Bishop, lifting the faggot-fork, carefully stirred and built up the logs.

"What were we saying, my dear Knight, when we strayed into a side issue? Ah, I remember! I was telling you of my appointment to the See of Worcester, and my belief that the Prioress failed to recognise in me, one she had known long years before."

The Bishop put by the faggot-fork and turned from the fire.

"I found the promise of that radiant girlhood more than fulfilled. She was changed; she shewed obvious signs of having passed through the furnace; but pure gold can stand the fire. The strength of purpose, the noble outlook upon life, the gracious tenderness for others, had matured and developed. Even the necessary restrictions of monastic life could not modify the grand lines—both mental, and physical—on which Nature had moulded her.

"I endeavoured to think no thoughts concerning her, other than should be thought of a holy lady who has taken vows of celibacy. Yet, seeing her so fitted to have made house home for a man, helping him upward, and to have been the mother of a fine race of sons and daughters, I felt it grievous that in leaving the world for a reason which in no sense could be considered a true vocation, she should have cut herself off from such powers and possibilities.

"So passed the years in the calm service of God and of the Church; yet always I seemed aware that a crisis would come, and that, when that crisis came, she would need me."

The Bishop paused and looked at the Knight.

Hugh's face was in shadow; but, as the Bishop looked at him, the rubies on his breast glittered in the firelight, as if some sudden thought had set him strongly quivering.

At sight of which, a flash of firm resolve, like the swift drawing of a sword, broke o'er the Bishop's calmness. It was quick and powerful; it seemed to divide asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And before that two-edged blade could sheathe itself again, swiftly the Bishop spoke.

"Therefore, my dear Hugh, when you arrived with your tale of wrong and treachery, all unconsciously to yourself, every word you spoke of your betrothed revealed her to the man who had loved her while you were yet a youth, with your spurs to win, and all life before you.

"I saw in your arrival, and in the strange tale you told, a wondrous chance for her of that fuller development of life for which I knew her to be so perfectly fitted.

"It had seemed indeed the irony of fate that, while I had fled and dwelt in exile lest my presence should hold her back from marriage, the treachery of others should have driven her into a life of celibacy.

"Therefore while, with my tacit consent, you went to work in your own way, I sent my messenger to Rome bearing to the Holy Father a full account of all, petitioning a dispensation from vows taken owing to deception, and asking leave to unite in the holy sacrament of marriage these long-sundered lovers, undertaking that no scandal should arise therefrom, either in the Nunnery or in the City of Worcester.

"As you have seen, my messenger this night returned; and we now find ourselves armed with the full sanction of His Holiness, providing the Prioress, of her own free will, desires to renounce the high position she has won in her holy calling, and to come to you."

The quiet voice ceased speaking.

The Knight rose slowly to his feet. At first he stood silent. Then he spoke with a calm dignity which proved him worthy of the Bishop's trust.

"I greatly honour you, my lord," he said; "and were our ages and conditions other than they are, so that we might fight for the woman we love, I should be proud to cross swords with you."

The Bishop sat looking into the fire. A faint smile flickered at the corners of the sensitive mouth. The fights he had fought for the woman he loved had been of sterner quality than the mere crossing of knightly swords.

Hugh d'Argent spoke again.

"Profoundly do I thank you, Reverend Father, for all that you have done; and even more, for that which you did not do. It was six years after her first sojourn at the Court that I met Mora, loved her, and won her; and well I know that the sweet love she gave to me was a love from which no man had brushed the bloom."

Hugh paused.

Those kindly and very luminous eyes were still bent upon the fire. Was the Bishop finding it hard to face the fact that his life's secret had now, by his own act, passed into the keeping of another?

Hugh moved a pace nearer.

"And deeply do I love you, Reverend Father, for your wondrous goodness to her, and—for her sake—to me. And I pray heaven," added Hugh d'Argent simply, "that if she come to me, she may never know that she once won the love of so greatly better a man than he who won hers."

With which the Knight dropped upon one knee, and humbly kissed the hem of the Bishop's robe.

Symon of Worcester was greatly moved.

"My son," he said, "we are at one in desiring her happiness and highest good. For the rest, God, and her own pure heart, must guide her feet into the way of peace."

The Bishop rose, and went to the casement.

"The aurora breaks in the east. The dawn is near. Come with me, Hugh, to the chapel. We pray for His Holiness, giving thanks for his gracious letter and mandate; we praise for the safe return of my messenger. But we will also offer up devout petition that the Prioress may have clear light at this parting of the ways, and that our enterprise may be brought to a happy conclusion."

So, presently, in the dimly-lighted chapel, the Knight knelt alone; while, away at the high altar, remote, wrapt, absorbed in the supreme act of his priestly office, stood the Bishop, celebrating mass.

Yet one anxious prayer ascended from the hearts of both.

And, in the pale dawn of that new day, the woman for whom both the Knight and the Bishop prayed, kept vigil in her cell, before the shrine of the Madonna.

"Blessed Virgin," she said; "thou who lovedst Saint Joseph, being betrothed to him, yet didst keep thyself an holy shrine consecrate to the Lord and His need of thee—oh, grant unto me strength to put from me this constant torment at the thought of his sufferings to whom once I gave my troth, and to reconsecrate myself wholly to the service of my Lord."

Thus these three knelt, as a new day dawned.

And the Knight prayed: "Give her to me!"

And the Bishop prayed: "Guide her feet into the way of peace."

And the Prioress, with hands crossed upon her breast and eyes uplifted, said: "Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee."

The silver streaks of the aurora paled before soaring shafts of gold, bright heralds of the rising sun.

Then from the Convent garden trilled softly the first notes, poignant but passing sweet, of the robin's song.



CHAPTER XXV

MARY ANTONY RECEIVES THE BISHOP

The morning after the return from Rome of the Bishop's messenger, the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, chanced to be crossing the Convent courtyard, when there came a loud knocking on the outer gates.

Mary Antony, hastening, thrust aside the buxom porteress, and herself opened the guichet, and looked out.

The Lord Bishop, mounted upon his white palfrey, waited without; Brother Philip in attendance.

What a bewildering surprise! What a fortunate thing, thought old Antony, that she should chance to be there to deal with such an emergency.

Never did the Bishop visit the Nunnery, without sending a messenger beforehand to know whether the Prioress could see him, stating the exact hour of his proposed arrival; so that, when the great doors were flung wide and the Bishop rode into the courtyard, the Prioress would be standing at the top of the steps to receive him; Mother Sub-Prioress in attendance in the background; the other holy ladies upon their knees within the entrance; Mary Antony, well out of sight, yet where peeping was possible, because she loved to see the Reverend Mother kneel and kiss the Bishop's ring, rising to her feet again without pause, making of the whole movement one graceful, deep obeisance. After which, Mary Antony, still peeping, greatly loved to see the Prioress mount the wide, stone staircase with the Bishop; each shewing a courtly deference to the other.

(One of Mary Antony's most exalted dreams of heaven, was of a place where she should sit upon a jasper seat and see the Reverend Mother and the great Lord Bishop mounting together interminable flights of golden stairs; while Mother Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca looked through black bars, somewhere down below, whence they would have a good view of Mary Antony on her jasper seat, but no glimpse of the golden stairs or of the radiant figures which she watched ascending.)

So much for the usual visits of the Bishop, when everything was in readiness for his reception.

But now, all unexpected, the Bishop waited without the gate, and Mary Antony had to deal with this emergency.

Crying to the porteress to open wide, she hastened to the steps. . . . It was impossible to summon the Reverend Mother in time. . . . The Lord Bishop must not be kept waiting! . . . Even now the great doors were rolling back.

Mary Antony mounted the six steps; then turned in the doorway.

The Lord Bishop must be received. There was nobody else to do it. She would receive the Lord Bishop!

As she saw him riding in upon Icon, blessing the porteress as he passed, she remembered how she had ridden round the river meadow as the Bishop. Now she must play her part as the Prioress.

So it came to pass that, as he rode up to the door and dismounted, flinging his rein to Brother Philip, the Bishop found himself confronted by the queer little figure of the aged lay-sister, drawn up to its full height and obviously upheld by a sense of importance and dignity.

As the Bishop reached the entrance, she knelt and kissed his ring; then tried to rise quickly, failed, and clutching at his hand, exclaimed: "Devil take my old knee-joints!"

Never before had the Bishop been received with such a formula! Never had his ring been kissed by a lay-sister! But remembering the scene when old Antony rode round the field upon Icon, he understood that she now was playing the part of Prioress.

"Good-day, worthy Mother," he said, as he raised her. "The spirit is willing I know, but, in your case, the knee-joints are weak. But no wonder, for they have done you long service. Why, I get up slowly from kneeling, yet my knees are thirty years younger than yours. . . . Nay I will not mount to the Reverend Mother's chamber until you acquaint her of my arrival. Take me round to the garden, and there let me wait in the shade, while you seek her."

Greatly elated at the success of her effort, and emboldened by his charming condescension, Mary Antony led the Bishop through the rose-arch; and, casting a furtive glance at his face from behind the curtain of her veil, ventured to hope there was naught afoot which could bring trouble or care to the Reverend Mother.

Mary Antony was trotting beside the Bishop, down the long walk between the yew hedges, when she gave vent to this anxious question.

At once the Bishop slackened speed.

"Not so fast, Sister Antony," he said. "I pray you to remember mine age, and to moderate your pace. Why should you expect trouble or anxiety for the Reverend Mother?"

"Nay," said Mary Antony, "I expect naught; I saw naught; I heard naught! 'Twas all mine own mistake, counting with my peas. I told the Reverend Mother so, and set her mind at rest by carrying up six peas, saying that I had found six and not five in my wallet."

"Let us pause," said the Bishop, "and look at this lily. How lovely are its petals. How tall and white it shews against the hedge. Why did you need to set the Reverend Mother's mind at rest, Sister Antony, by carrying up six peas?"

"Because," said the old lay-sister, "when I had counted as they returned, the twenty holy ladies who had gone to Vespers, yet another passed making twenty-one. Upon which I ran and reported to the Reverend Mother, saying in my folly, that I feared the twenty-first was Sister Agatha, returned to walk amongst the Living, she being over fifty years numbered with the Dead. Yet many a time, just before dawn, have I heard her rapping on the cloister door; aye, many a time—tap! tap! tap! But what good would there be in opening to a poor lady you helped thrust into her shroud, nigh upon sixty years before? So 'Tap away!' says I; 'tap away, Sister Agatha! Try Saint Peter at the gates of Paradise. Old Antony knows better than to let you in.'"

"What said the Reverend Mother when you reported on a twenty-first White Lady?" asked the Bishop.

"Reverend Mother bid me begone, while she herself dealt with the wraith of Sister Agatha."

"And why did you not go?" asked the Bishop, quietly.

Completely taken aback, Mary Antony's ready tongue failed her. She stood stock still and stared at the Bishop. Her gums began to rattle and she clapped her knuckles against them, horror and dismay in her eyes.

The Bishop looked searchingly into the frightened old face, and there read all he wanted to know. Then he smiled; and, taking her gently by the arm, paced on between the yew hedges.

"Sister Antony," he said, and the low tones of his voice fell like quiet music upon old Antony's perturbed spirit; "you and I, dear Sister Antony, love the Reverend Mother so truly and so faithfully, that there is nothing we would not do, to save her a moment's pain. We know how noble and how good she is; and that she will always decide aright, and follow in the footsteps of our blessed Lady and all the holy saints. But others there are, who do not love her as we love her, or know her as we know her; and they might judge her wrongly. Therefore we must tell to none, that which we know—how the Reverend Mother, alone, dealt with that visitor, who was not the wraith of Sister Agatha."

Mary Antony peeped up at the Bishop. A light of great joy was on her face. Her eyes had lost their look of terror, and began to twinkle cunningly.

"I know naught," she said. "I saw naught; I heard naught."

The Bishop smiled.

"How many peas were left in your wallet, Sister Antony ?"

"Five," chuckled Mary Antony.

"Why did you shew six to the Reverend Mother?"

"To set her mind at rest," whispered the old lay-sister.

"To cause her to think that you had heard naught, seen naught, and knew naught?"

Mary Antony nodded, chuckling again.

"Faithful old heart!" said the Bishop. "What gave thee this thought?"

"Our blessed Lady, in answer to her petition, sharpened the wits of old Antony."

The Bishop sighed. "May our blessed Lady keep them sharp," he murmured, half aloud.

"Amen," said Mary Antony with fervour.



CHAPTER XXVI

LOVE NEVER FAILETH

The Bishop awaited the Prioress on that stone seat under the beech, from which the robin had carried off the pea.

He saw her coming through the sunlit cloisters.

As she moved down the steps, and came swiftly toward him, he was conscious at once of an indefinable change in her.

Had that ride upon Icon set her free from trammels in which she had been hitherto immeshed?

As she reached him, he took both her hands, so that she should not kneel.

"Already I have been received with obeisance, my daughter," he said; and told her of old Mary Antony's quaint little figure, standing to do the honours in the doorway.

The Prioress, at this, laughed gaily, and in her turn told the Bishop of the scene, on this very spot, when old Antony displayed her peas to the robin.

"What peas?" asked the Bishop; and so heard the whole story of the twenty-five peas and the daily counting, and of the identifying of certain of the peas with various members of the Community. "And a large, white pea, chosen for its fine aspect, was myself," said the Prioress; "and, leaving the Sub-Prioress and Sister Mary Rebecca, Master Robin swooped down and flew off with me! Hearing cries of distress, I hastened hither, to find Mary Antony denouncing the robin as 'Knight of the Bloody Vest,' and making loud lamentations over my abduction. Her imaginings become more real to her than realities."

"She hath a faithful heart," said the Bishop, "and a shrewd wit."

"Faithful? Aye," said the Prioress, "faithful and loving. Yet it is but lately I have realised, the love, beneath her carefulness and devotion." The Prioress bent her level brows, looking away to the overhanging branches of the Pieman's tree. "How quickly, in these places, we lose the very remembrance of the meaning of personal, human love. We grow so soon accustomed to allowing ourselves to dwell only upon the abstract or the divine."

"That is a loss," said the Bishop. He turned and began to pace slowly toward the cloister; "a grievous loss, my daughter. Sooner than that you should suffer that loss, beyond repair, I would let the daring Knight of the Bloody Vest carry you off on swift wing. Better a robin's nest, if, love be there, than a nunnery full of dead hearts."

He heard the quick catch of her breath, but gave her no chance to speak.

"'And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three,'" quoted the Bishop; "'but the greatest of these is love.'"

They were moving through the cloisters. The Prioress turned in the doorway, pausing that the Bishop might pass in before her.

"This, my lord," she said, with a fine sweep of her arm, "is the abode of Faith and Hope, and also of that divine Love, which excelleth both Hope and Faith."

"Nay," said the Bishop, "I pray you, listen. 'Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked, thinking no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.' Methinks," said the Bishop, in a tone of gentle meditation, as he entered the Prioress's cell, "the apostle was speaking of a most human love; yet he rated it higher than faith and hope."

"Are you still dwelling upon Sister Mary Seraphine, my lord?" inquired the Prioress, and in her voice he heard the sound of a gathering storm.

"Nay, my dear Prioress," said the Bishop, seating himself in the Spanish chair, and laying his biretta upon the table near by; "I speak not of self-love, nor does the apostle whose words I quote. I take it, he writes of human love, sanctified; upborne by faith and hope, yet greater than either; just as a bird is greater than its wings, yet cannot mount without them. We must have faith, we must have hope; then our poor earthly loves can rise from the lower level of self-seeking and self-pleasing and take their place among those things that are eternal."

The Prioress had placed her chair opposite the Bishop. She was very pale, and her lips trembled. She made so great an effort to speak with calmness, that her voice sounded stern and hard.

"Why this talk of earthly loves, my Lord Bishop, in a place where all earthly love has been renounced and forgotten?"

The Bishop, seeing those trembling lips, ignored the hard tones, and answered, very tenderly, with a simple directness which scorned all evasion:

"Because, my daughter, I am here to plead for Hugh."



CHAPTER XXVII

THE WOMAN AND HER CONSCIENCE

"For Hugh?" said the Prioress. And then again, in low tones of incredulous amazement, "For Hugh! What know you of Hugh, my lord?"

The Bishop looked steadfastly at the Prioress, and replied with exceeding gravity and earnestness:

"I know that in breaking your solemn troth to him, you are breaking a very noble heart; and that in leaving his home desolate, you are robbing him not only of his happiness but also of his faith. Men are apt to rate our holy religion, not by its theories, but by the way in which it causeth us to act in our dealings with them. If you condemn Hugh to sit beside his hearth, through the long years, a lonely, childless man, you take the Madonna from his home; if you take your love from him, I greatly fear lest you should also rob him of his belief in the love of God. I do not say that these things should be so; I say that we must face the fact that thus they are. And remember—between a man and woman of noble birth, each with a stainless escutcheon, each believing the other to be the soul of honour, a broken troth is no light matter."

"I did not break my troth," said the Prioress, "until I believed that Hugh had broken his. I had suffered sore anguish of heart and humiliation of spirit, over the news of his marriage with his cousin Alfrida, ere I resolved to renounce the world and enter the cloister."

"But Hugh did not wed his cousin, nor any other woman," said the Bishop. "He was true to you in every thought and act, even after he also had passed through sore anguish of heart by reason of your supposed marriage with another suitor."

"I learned the truth but a few days since," said the Prioress. "For seven long years I thought Hugh false to me. For seven long years I believed him the husband of another woman, and schooled myself to forget every memory of past tenderness."

"You were both deceived," said the Bishop. "You have both passed through deep waters. You each owe it to the other to make all possible reparation."

"For seven holy years," said the Prioress, firmly, "I have been the bride of Christ."

"Do you love Hugh?" asked the Bishop.

There was silence in the chamber.

The Prioress desired, most fervently, to take her stand as one dead to all earthly loves and desires. Yet each time she opened her lips to reply, a fresh picture appeared in the mirror of her mental vision, and closed them.

She saw herself, with hand outstretched, clasping Hugh's as they kneeled together before the shrine of the Madonna. She could feel the rush of pulsing life flow from his hand to the palm of hers, and so upward to her poor numbed heart, making it beat its wings like a caged bird.

She felt again the strength and comfort of the strong arm on which she leaned, as slowly through the darkness she and Hugh paced in silence, side by side.

She remembered each time when obedience had seemed strangely sweet, and she had loved the manly abruptness of his commands.

She saw Hugh, in the ring of yellow light cast by the lantern, kneeling at her feet. She felt his hair, thick and soft, between her fingers.

And then—she remembered that shuddering sob, and the instant breaking down of every barrier. He was hers, to comfort; she was his, to soothe his pain. Then—the exquisite moment of yielding; the relief of the clasp of his strong arms; the passing away of the suffering of long years, as she felt his lips on hers, and surrendered to the hunger of his kiss.

Then—one last picture—when loyal to her wish, felt rather than expressed, he had freed her, and passed, without further word or touch, up into that dim grey light like a pearly dawn at sea—passed, and been lost to view; she saw herself left in utter loneliness, the heavy door locked by her own turning of the key, he on one side, she on the other, for ever; she saw herself lying beneath the ground, in darkness and desolation, her face in the damp dust where his feet had stood.

"Do you love Hugh?" again demanded the Bishop.

And the Prioress lifted eyes full of suffering, reproach, and pain, but also full of courage and truth, to his face, and answered simply: "Alas, my lord, I do."

The silence thereafter following was tense with conflict. The Bishop turned his eyes to the figure of the Redeemer upon the cross, self-sacrifice personified, while the Prioress mastered her emotion.

Then: "'Love never faileth,'" said the Bishop gently.

But the Prioress had regained command over herself, and the gentle words were to her a challenge. She donned, forthwith, the breastplate of holy resolve, and drew her sword.

"My Lord Bishop, you have wrung from me a confession of my love; but in so doing, you have wrung from me a confession of sin. A nun may not yield to such love as Hugh d'Argent still desires to win from me. With long hours of prayer and vigil, have I sought to purge my soul from the stain of a weak yielding—even for 'a moment'—to the masterful insistence of this man, who forced himself, by the subterfuge of a sacrilegious masquerade, into the sacred precincts of our Nunnery. I know not whom he bribed"—continued the Prioress, flashing an indignant glance of suspicion at the Bishop.

"'Love thinking no evil,'" murmured Symon of Worcester.

"But I do know, that somebody in high authority must have connived at his plotting, or he could not have found himself alone in the crypt at the hour of Vespers, in such wise as to assume our dress and, mingling with the returning procession, gain entrance to the cloisters. And somebody must still be aiding and abetting his plans, or he could not be, as he himself told me he would be, daily in the crypt alone, during the hour when we pass to and from the clerestory. It angers me, my lord, to think that one who should, in this, be on my side, taketh part against me."

"'Is not easily provoked,'" quoted the Bishop.

"In fact I am tempted, my lord," said the Prioress, rising to her feet, tall and indignant, "I am almost tempted, my Lord Bishop, to forget the reverence which I owe to your high office——"

"'Doth not behave itself unseemly,'" murmured Symon of Worcester, putting on his biretta.

The Prioress turned her back upon the Bishop, and walked over to the window. She was so angry that she felt the tears stinging beneath her eyelids; yet at the same time she experienced a most incongruous desire to kneel down beside that beautiful and dignified figure, rest her head against the Bishop's knees, and pour out the cruel tale of conflicts, uncertainties and strivings, temptations and hard-won victories, which, had lately made up the sum of her nights and days. He had been her trusted friend and counsellor during all these years. Yet now she knew him arrayed against her, and she feared him more than she feared Hugh. Hugh wrestled with her feelings; and, on the plane of the senses, she knew her will would triumph. But the Bishop wrestled with her mentality; and behind his calm gentleness was a strength of intellect which, if she yielded at all, would seize and hold her, as steel fingers in a velvet glove.

She returned to her seat, composed but determined.

"Reverend Father," she said, "I pray you to pardon my too swift indignation. To you I look to aid me in this time of difficulty. I grieve for the sorrow and disappointment to a brave and noble knight, a loyal lover, and a most faithful heart. But I cannot reward faith with un-faith. If I broke my sacred vows in order to give myself to him, I should not bring a blessing to his home. Better an empty hearth than a hearth where broods a curse. Besides, we never could live down the scandal caused. I should be anathema to all. The Pope himself would doubtless excommunicate us. It would mean endless sorrow for me, and danger for Hugh. On these grounds, alone, it cannot be."

Then the Bishop drew from his sash a folded sheet of vellum.

"My daughter," he said, "when Hugh came to me with his grievous tale of treachery and loss, he refused to give me the name of the woman he sought, saying only that he believed she was to be found among the White Ladies of Worcester. When I asked her name he answered: 'Nay, I guard her name, as I would guard mine honour. If I fail to win her back; if she withhold herself from me, so that I ride away alone; then must I ride away leaving no shadow of reproach on her fair fame. Her name will be for ever in my heart,' said Hugh, 'but no word of mine shall have left it, in the mind of any man, linked with a broken troth or a forsaken lover.' I tell you this, my daughter, lest you should misjudge a very loyal knight.

"But no true lover was ever a diplomat. Hugh had not talked long with me, before you stood clearly revealed. A few careful questions settled the matter, beyond a doubt. Whereupon, my dear Prioress——"

The Bishop paused. It became suddenly difficult to proceed. The clear eyes of the Prioress were upon him.

"Whereupon, my lord?"

"Whereupon I realised—an early dream of mine seemed promised a possible fulfilment. I knew Hugh as a lad— It is a veritable passion with me that all things should attain unto their full perfection— In short, I sent a messenger to Rome, bearing a careful account of the whole matter, in a private letter from myself to His Holiness the Pope. Last evening, my messenger returned, bringing a letter from the Holy Father, with this enclosed."

The Bishop held out the folded document.

The Prioress rose, took it from him, and unfolded it.

As she read the opening lines, the amazement on her face quickly gathered into a frown.

"What!" she said. "The name and rank I resigned on entering this Order! Who dares to write or speak of me as 'Mora, Countess of Norelle'?"

"Merely His Holiness the Pope, and the Bishop of Worcester," said the Bishop meekly, in an undertone, not meaning the Prioress to hear; and, indeed, she ignored this answer, her words having been an angry ejaculation, rather than a question.

But there was worse to come.

"Dispensation!" exclaimed the Prioress.

"Absolution!" she cried, a little further on.

And at last, reading rapidly, in tones of uncontrollable anger and indignation: "'Empowers Symon, Lord Bishop of Worcester, or any priest he may appoint, to unite in the holy sacrament of marriage the Knight-Crusader, Hugh d'Argent, and Mora de Norelle, sometime Prioress of the White Ladies of Worcester.' Sometime Prioress? In very truth, they have dared so to write it! SOMETIME Prioress! It will be well they should understand she is Prioress NOW—not some time or any time, but NOW and HERE!"

She turned upon the Bishop.

"My lord, the Church seems to be bringing its powers to bear on the side of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, leaving a woman and her conscience to stand alone and battle unaided with the grim forces arrayed against her. But you shall see that she knows how to deal with any weapon of the adversary which happens to fall into her hands."

Upon which the Prioress rent the mandate from top to bottom, then across and again across; flung the pieces upon the floor, and set her foot upon them.

"Thus I answer," she cried, "your attempt, my lord, to induce the Pope to release me from vows which I hold to be eternally sacred and binding. And if you are bent upon divorcing a nun from her Heavenly Union, and making her to become the chattel of a man, you must seek her elsewhere than in the Convent of the White Ladies of Worcester, my Lord Bishop!"

So spoke the angry Prioress, making the quiet chamber to ring with her scorn and indignation.

The Bishop had made no attempt to prevent the tearing of the document. When she flung it upon the floor, placing her foot upon the fragments, he merely looked at them regretfully, and then back upon her face, back into those eyes which flamed on him in furious indignation. And in his own there was a look so sorrowful, so deeply wounded, and yet withal so tenderly understanding, that it quelled and calmed the anger of the Prioress.

Her eyes fell slowly, from the serene sadness of that quiet face, to the silver cross, studded with oriental amethysts, at his breast; to the sash girdling his purple cassock; to the hand resting on his knees; to the stone in his ring, from which the rich colour had faded, leaving it pale and clear, like a large teardrop on the Bishop's finger; to his shoes, with their strange Italian buckles; then along the floor to her own angry foot, treading upon the torn fragments of that precious document, procured, at such pains and cost, from His Holiness at Rome.

Then, suddenly, the Prioress faltered, weakened, fell upon her knees, with a despairing cry, clasped her hands upon the Bishop's knees, and laid her forehead upon them.

"Alas," she sobbed, "what have I done! In my pride and arrogance, I have spoken ill to you, my lord, who have ever shewn me most considerate kindness; and in a moment of ill-judged resentment, I have committed sacrilege against the Holy Father, rending the deed which bears his signature. Alas, woe is me! In striving to do right, I have done most grievous wrong; in seeking not to sin, lo, I have sinned beyond belief!"

The Prioress wept, her head upon her hands, clasped and resting upon the Bishop's knees.

Symon of Worcester laid his hand very gently upon that bowed head, and as he did so his eyes sought again the figure of the Christ upon the cross. The Prioress would have been startled indeed, had she lifted her head and seen those eyes—heretofore shrewd, searching, kindly, or twinkling and gay,—now full of an unfathomable pain. But, sobbing with her face hidden, the Prioress was conscious only of her own sufferings.

Presently the Bishop began to speak.

"We did not mean to overrule your judgment, or to force your inclination, my daughter. If we appear to have done so, the blame is mine alone. This mandate is drawn up entirely along the lines of my suggestion, owing to my influence with His Holiness, and based upon particulars furnished by me. Now let me read to you the private letter from the Holy Father to myself, giving further important conditions."

The Bishop drew forth and unfolded the letter from Rome, and very slowly, that each syllable might carry weight, he read it aloud.

As the gracious and kindly words fell upon the Prioress's ear, commanding that no undue pressure should be brought to bear upon her, and insisting that it must be entirely by her own wish, if she resigned her office and availed herself of this dispensation from her vows, she felt humbled to the dust at thought of her own violence, and of the injustice of her angry words.

Her weeping became so heartbroken, that the Bishop again laid his left hand, with kindly comforting touch, upon her bowed head.

As he read the Pope's most particular injunctions as to the manner in which she must leave the Nunnery and take her place in the world once more, so as to prevent any public scandal, she fell silent from sheer astonishment, holding her breath to listen to the final clause empowering the Bishop to announce within the Convent, when her absence became known, that she had been moved on by him, secretly, with the knowledge and approval of the Pope, to a place where she was required for higher service.

"Higher service," said the Prioress, her face still hidden. "Higher service? Can it be that the Holy Father really speaks of the return to earthly love and marriage, the pleasures of the world, and the joys of home life, as 'higher service'?"

The grief, the utter disillusion, the dismayed question in her tone, moved the Bishop to compunction.

"Mine was the phrase, to begin with, my daughter," he admitted. "I used it to the Holy Father, and I confess that, in using it, I did mean to convey that which, as you well know. I have long believed, that wifehood and motherhood, if worthily performed, may rank higher in the Divine regard than vows of celibacy. But, in adopting the expression, the Holy Father, we may rest assured, had no thought of undervaluing the monastic life, or the high position within it to which you have attained. I should rather take it that he was merely accepting my assurance that the new vocation to which you were called would, in your particular case, be higher service."

The Prioress, lifting her head, looked long into the Bishop's face, without making reply.

Her eyes were drowned in tears; dark shadows lay beneath them. Yet the light of a high resolve, unconquerable within her, shone through this veil of sorrow, as when the sun, behind it, breaks through the mist, victorious, chasing by its clear beams the baffling fog.

Seeing that look, the Bishop knew, of a sudden, that he had failed; that the Knight had failed; that the all-powerful pronouncement from the Vatican had failed.

The woman and her conscience held the field.

Having conquered her own love, having mastered her own natural yearning for her lover, she would overcome with ease all other assailants.

In two days' time Hugh would ride away alone. Unless a miracle happened, Mora would not be with him.

The Bishop faced defeat as he looked into those clear eyes, fearless even in their sorrowful humility.

"Oh, child," he said, "you love Hugh! Can you let him ride forth alone, accompanied only by the grim spectres of unfaith and of despair? His hope, his faith, his love, all centre in you. Another Prioress can be found for this Nunnery. No other bride can be found for Hugh d'Argent. He will have his own betrothed, or none."

Still kneeling, the Prioress threw back her head, looking upward, with clasped hands.

"Reverend Father," she said, "I will not go to the man I love, trailing broken vows, like chains, behind me. There could be no harmony in life's music. Whene'er I moved, where'er I trod, I should hear the constant clanking of those chains. No man can set me free from vows made to God. But——"

The Prioress paused, looking past the Bishop at the gracious figure of the Madonna. She had remembered, of a sudden, how Hugh had knelt there, saying: "Blessed Virgin . . . 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 out to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

"But?" said the Bishop, leaning forward. "Yes, my daughter? But?"

"But if our blessed Lady herself vouchsafed me a clear sign that my first duty is to Hugh, if she absolved me from my vows, making it evident that God's will for me is that, leaving the Cloister, I should wed Hugh and dwell with him in his home; then I would strive to bring myself to do this thing. But I can take release from none save from our Lord, to Whom those vows were made, or from our Lady, who knoweth the heart of a woman, and whose grace hath been with me all through the strivings and conflicts of the years that are past."

The Bishop sighed. "Alas," he said; "alas, poor Hugh!"

For that our Lady should vouchsafe a clear sign, would have to be a miracle; and, though he would not have admitted it to the Prioress, the Bishop believed, in his secret heart, that the age of miracles was past.

One so fixed in her determination, so persistent in her assertion, so loud in her asseveration, would scarce be likely to hear the inward whisperings of Divine suggestion.

Therefore, should our Lady intervene with clear guidance, that intervention must be miraculous. And the Bishop sighing, said: "Alas, poor Hugh!"

His eye fell upon the fragments of rent vellum on the floor. He held out his hand.

The Prioress gathered up the fragments, and placed them in the Bishop's outstretched hand.

"Alas, my lord," she said, "you were witness of my grievous sin in thus rending the gracious message of His Holiness. Will it please you to appoint me a penance, if such an act can indeed be expiated?"

"The sin, my daughter, as I will presently explain, is scarcely so great as you think it. But, such as it is, it arose from a lack of calmness and of that mental equipoise which sails unruffled through a sea of contradiction. The irritability which results in displays of sudden temper is so foreign to your nature that it points to your having passed through a time of very special strain, both mental and physical; probably overlong vigils and fastings, while you wrestled with this anxious problem upon which so much, in the future, depends.

"As you ask me for penance, I will give you two: one which will set right your ill-considered action; the other which will help to remedy the cause of that action.

"The first is, that you place these fragments together and, taking a fresh piece of vellum, make a careful copy of this writing which you destroyed.

"The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your mental attitude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon. Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride for penance; and incidentally"—an irrepressible little smile crept round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his eyes—"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!" said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind of which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of God's 'whosoever' and, passing through the narrow gate, enter the Kingdom of Heaven as little children."

The Bishop rose, and giving his hand to the Prioress raised her to her feet.

"My lord," she said, "as ever you are most kind to me. Yet I fear you have been too lenient for my own peace of mind. To have destroyed in anger the mandate of His Holiness——"

"Nay, my daughter," said the Bishop. "The mandate of His Holiness, inscribed upon parchment, from which hangs the great seal of the Vatican, is safely placed among my most precious documents. You have but destroyed the result of an hour's careful work. I rose betimes this morning to make this copy. I should not have allowed you to tear it, had not the writing been my own. But I took pains to reproduce exactly the peculiar style of lettering they use in Rome, and you will do the same in your copy."

Turning, the Bishop knelt for a few moments in prayer before the Madonna. He could not have explained why, but somehow the only hope for Hugh seemed to be connected with this spot.

Yet it was hardly reassuring that, when he lifted grave and anxious eyes, our Lady gently smiled, and the sweet Babe looked merry.

Rising, the Bishop turned, with unwonted sternness, to the Prioress.

"Remember," he said, "Hugh rides away to-morrow night; rides away, never to return."

Her steadfast eyes did not falter.

"He had better have ridden away five days ago, my lord. He had my answer, and I bade him go. By staying he has but prolonged his suspense and my pain."

"Yes," said the Bishop slowly, "he had better have ridden away; or, better still, have never come upon this fruitless quest."

He moved toward the door.

The Prioress reached it before him.

With her hand upon the latch: "Your blessing, Reverend Father," entreated the Prioress, rather breathlessly.

"Benedicite," said the Bishop, with uplifted fingers, but with eyes averted; and passed out.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE WHITE STONE

Old Mary Antony was at the gate, when the Bishop rode out from the courtyard.

Thrusting the porteress aside, she pressed forward, standing with anxious face uplifted, as the Bishop approached.

He reined in Icon, and, bending from the saddle, murmured: "Take care of her, Sister Antony. I have left her in some distress."

"Hath she decided aright?" whispered the old lay-sister.

"She always decides aright," said the Bishop. "But she is so made that she will thrust happiness from her with both hands unless our Lady should herself offer it, by vision or revelation. I could wish thy gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest might indeed fly with her to his nest and teach her a few sweet lessons, in the green privacy of some leafy paradise. But I tell thee too much, worthy Mother. Keep a silent tongue in that shrewd old head of thine. Minister to her; and send word to me if I am needed. Benedicite."

An hour later, mounted upon his black mare, Shulamite, the Bishop rode to the high ground, on the north-east, above the city, from whence he could look down upon the river meadow.

As he had done on the previous day, he watched the Prioress riding upon Icon.

Once she put the horse to so sudden and swift a gallop that the Bishop, watching from afar, reined back Shulamite almost on to her haunches, in a sudden fear that Icon was about to leap into the stream.

For an hour the Prioress rode, with flying veil, white on the white steed; a fair marble group, quickened into motion.

Then, that penance being duly performed, she vanished through the archway.

Turning Shulamite, Symon of Worcester rode slowly down the hill, passed southward, and entered the city by Friar's Gate; and so to the Palace, where Hugh d'Argent waited.

The Bishop led him, through a postern, into the garden; and there on a wide lawn, out of earshot of any possible listeners, the Bishop and the Knight walked up and down in earnest conversation.

At length: "To-morrow, in the early morn," said the Knight, "I send her tire-woman on to Warwick, with all her effects, keeping back only the riding suit. Should she elect to come, we must be free to ride without drawing rein. Even so we shall reach Warwick only something before midnight."

"She tore it up and planted her foot upon it," remarked the Bishop.

"I will not give up hope," said the Knight.

"Nothing short of a miracle, my son, will change her mind, or move her from her fixed resolve."

"Then our Lady will work a miracle," declared the Knight bravely. "I prayed 'Send her to me!' and our blessed Lady smiled."

"A sculptured smile, dear lad, is ever there. Had you prayed 'Hold her from me!' our Lady would equally have smiled."

"Nay," said the Knight; "I keep my trust in prayer."

They paused at the parapet overhanging the river.

"I was successful," said the Knight, "in dealing with Eustace, her nephew. There will be no need to apply to the King. The ambition was his mother's. Now Eleanor is dead, he cares not for the Castle. Next month he weds an heiress, with large estates, and has no wish to lay claim to Mora's home. All is now once more as it was when she left it. Her own people are in charge. I plan to take her there when we leave Warwick, riding northward by easy stages."

The Bishop, stooping, picked up a smooth, white stone, and flung it into the river. It fell with a splash, and sank. The water closed upon it. It had vanished instantly from view.

Then the Bishop spoke. "Hugh, my dear lad, she thought it was the Pope's own deed and signature, yet she tore it across, and then again across; flung it upon the ground, and set her foot upon it. I deem it now as impossible that the Prioress should change her mind upon this matter, as that we should ever see again that stone which now lies deep on the river-bed."

It was a high dive from the parapet; and, to the Bishop, watching the spot where the Knight cleft the water, the moments seemed hours.

But when the Knight reappeared, the white stone was in his hand.

The Bishop went down to the water-gate.

"Bravely done, my son!" he called, as the Knight swam to the steps. "You deserve to win."

But to himself he said: "Fighting men and quick-witted women will be ever with us, gaining their ends by strenuous endeavour. But the age of miracles is past."

Hugh d'Argent mounted the steps.

"I shall win," he said, and shook himself like a great shaggy dog.

The Bishop, over whom fell a shower, carefully wiped the glistening drops from his garments with a fine Italian handkerchief.

"Go in, boy," he said, "and get dry. Send thy man for another suit, unless it would please thee better that Father Benedict should lend thee a cassock! Give me the stone. It may well serve as a reminder of that famous sacred stone from which the Convent takes its name. Methinks we have, between us, contrived something of an omen, concluding in thy favour."

Presently the Bishop, alone in his library, stood the white stone upon the iron-bound chest within which he had placed the Pope's mandate.

"The age of miracles is past," he said again. "Iron no longer swims, neither do stones rise from the depths of a river, unless the Divine command be supplemented by the grip of strong human fingers.

"Stand there, thou little tombstone of our hopes. Mark the place where lies the Holy Father's mandate, ecclesiastically all-powerful, yet rendered null and void by the faithful conscience and the firm will of a woman. God send us more such women!"

The Bishop sounded a silver gong, and when his body-servant appeared, pointed to the handkerchief, damp and crumpled, upon the table.

"Dry this, Jasper," he said, "and bring me another somewhat larger. These dainty trifles cannot serve, when 'tears run down like a river.' Nay, look not distressed, my good fellow. I do but jest. Yonder wet Knight hath given me a shower-bath."



CHAPTER XXIX

THE VISION OF MARY ANTONY

On the afternoon following the Bishop's unexpected visit to the Nunnery, the Prioress elected to walk last in the procession to and from the Cathedral, placing Mother Sub-Prioress first. It was her custom occasionally to vary the order of procession. Sometimes she walked thirteenth, with twelve before, and twelve behind her.

She had at first inclined on this day, after her strenuous time with the Bishop, followed by the hour's ride upon Icon, not to go to Vespers.

Then her heart failed her, and she went. On these two afternoons—this and the morrow—Hugh would still be in the crypt. She should not so much as glance toward the pillar at the foot of the winding stairway leading to the clerestory; yet it would be sweet to feel him to be standing there as she passed; sweet to know that he heard the same sounds as fell upon her ear.

To-day, and again on the morrow, she might yield to this yearning for the comfort of his nearness; but never again, for Hugh would not return.

She had wondered whether she dared ask him, by the Bishop, on a given date once a year to attend High Mass in the Cathedral, so that she might know him to be under the same roof, worshipping, at the same moment, the same blessed manifestation of the Divine Presence.

But almost at once she had dismissed the desire, realising that comfort such as this, could be comfort but to the heart of a woman, more likely torment to a man. Also that should his fancy incline him to seek companionship and consolation in the love of another, a yearly pilgrimage to Worcester for her sake, would stand in the way of his future happiness.

Walking last in that silent procession back to the Nunnery, the Prioress walked alone with her sadness. Her heart was heavy indeed.

She had angered her old friend, Symon of Worcester. After being infinitely patient, when he might well have had cause for wrath, he had suddenly taken a sterner tone, and departed in a certain aloofness, leaving her with the fear that she had lost him, also, beyond recall.

Thus she walked in loneliness and sorrow.

As she passed up the steps into the cloisters, she noted that Mary Antony was not in her accustomed place.

Slightly wondering, and half unconsciously explaining to herself that the old lay-sister had probably for some reason gone forward with the Sub-Prioress, the Prioress moved down the now empty passage and entered her own cell.

On the threshold she paused, astonished.

In front of the shrine of the Madonna, knelt Mary Antony in a kind of trance, hands clasped, eyes fixed, lips parted, the colour gone from her cheeks, yet a radiance upon her face, like the after-glow of a vision of exceeding glory.

She appeared to be wholly unconscious of the presence of the Prioress, who recovering from her first astonishment, closed the door, and coming forward laid her hand gently upon the old woman's shoulder.

Mary Antony's eyes remained fixed, but her lips moved incessantly. Bending over her, the Prioress could make out disjointed sentences.

"Gone! . . . But it was at our Lady's bidding. . . . Flown? Ah, gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest! Nay, it must have been the archangel Gabriel, or maybe Saint George, in shining armour. . . . How shall we live without the Reverend Mother? But the will of our blessed Lady must be done."

"Antony!" said the Prioress. "Wake up, dear Antony! You are dreaming again. You are thinking of the robin and the pea. I have not gone from you; nor am I going. See! I am here."

She turned the old face about, and brought herself into Mary Antony's field of vision.

Slowly a light of recognition dawned in those fixed eyes; then came a cry, as of fear and of a great dismay; then a gasping sound, a clutching of the air. Mary Antony had fallen prone, before the shrine of the Madonna.

An hour later she lay upon her bed, whither they had carried her. She had recovered consciousness, and partaken of wine and bread.

The colour had returned to her cheeks, when the Prioress came in, dismissed the lay-sister in attendance, closed the door, and sat down beside the couch.

"Thou art better, dear Antony," said the Prioress. "They tell me thy strength has returned, and this strange fainting is over. Thou must lie still yet awhile; but will it weary thee to speak?"

"Nay, Reverend Mother, I should dearly love to speak. My soul is full of wonder; yet to none saving to you, Reverend Mother, can I tell of that which I have seen."

"Tell me all, dear Antony," said the Prioress. "Sister Mary Rebecca says thy symptoms point to a Divine Vision."

Mary Antony chuckled. "For once Sister Mary Rebecca speaks the truth," she said. "Have patience with me, Reverend Mother, and I will tell you all."

The Prioress gently stroked the worn hands lying outside the coverlet.

Mary Antony looked very old in bed. Were it not for the bright twinkling eyes, she looked too old ever again to stand upon her feet. Yet how she still bustled upon those same old feet! How diligently she performed her own duties, and shewed to the other lay-sisters how they should have performed theirs!

Forty years ago, she had chosen her nook in the Convent burying-ground. She was even then, among the older members of the Community; yet most of those who saw her choose it, now lay in their own.

"She will outlive us all," said Mother Sub-Prioress one day, sourly; angered by some trick of Mary Antony's.

"She is like an ancient parrot," cried Sister Mary Rebecca, anxious to agree with Mother Sub-Prioress.

Which when Mary Antony heard, she chuckled, and snapped her fingers.

"Please God, I shall live long enough," she said, "to thrust Mother Sub-Prioress into a sackcloth shroud; also, to crack nuts upon the sepulchre of Sister Mary Rebecca."

But none of these remarks reached the Prioress. She loved the old lay-sister, knowing the aged body held a faithful and zealous heart, and a mind which, in its quaint simplicity, oft seemed to the Prioress like the mind of a little child—and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

"There is no need for patience, dear Antony," said the Prioress. "I can sit in stillness beside thee, until thy tale be fully told. Begin at the beginning."

The slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, piercing through the narrow window, fell in a golden band of light upon the folded hands, lighting up the aged face with an almost unearthly radiance.

"I was in the cloisters," began Mary Antony, "awaiting the return from Vespers of the holy Ladies.

"I go there betimes, because at that hour I am accustomed to hold converse with a little vain man in a red jerkin, who comes to see me, when he knows me to be alone. I tell him tales such as he never hears elsewhere. To-day I planned to tell him how the great Lord Bishop, arriving unannounced, rode into the courtyard; and, seeing old Antony standing in the doorway, mistook her for the Reverend Mother. That was a great moment in the life of Mary Antony, and confers upon her added dignity.

"'So turn out thy toes, and make thy best bow, and behave thee as a little layman should behave in the presence of one who hath been mistaken for one holding so high an office in Holy Church.'

"Thus," explained Mary Antony, "had I planned to strike awe into the little red breast of that over-bold robin."

"And came the robin to the cloisters?" inquired the Prioress, presently, for Mary Antony lay upon her pillow laughing to herself, nodding and bowing, and making her fingers hop to and fro on the coverlet, as a bird might hop with toes out turned. Nor would she be recalled at once to the happenings of the afternoon.

"The great Lord Bishop did address me as 'worthy Mother,'" she remarked; "not 'Reverend Mother,' as we address our noble Prioress. And this has given me much food for thought. Is it better to be worthy and not reverend, or reverend and not worthy? Our large white sow, when she did contrive to have more little pigs in her litters, than ever our sows had before; and, after a long and fruitful life, furnished us with two excellent hams, a boar's head, and much bacon, was a worthy sow; but never was she reverend, not even when Mother Sub-Prioress pronounced the blessing over her face, much beautified by decoration—grand ivory tusks, and a lemon in her mouth! Never, in life, had she looked so fair; which is indeed, I believe, the case with many. Yet, for all her worthiness, she was not reverend. Also I have heard tell of a certain Prior, not many miles from here, who, borrowing money, never repays it; who oppresses the poor, driving them from the Priory gate; who maltreats the monks, and is kind unto none, saving unto himself. He—it seems—is reverend but not worthy. While thou, Master Redbreast, art certainly not reverend; the saints, and thine own conscience, alone know whether thou art worthy.

"This," explained Mary Antony, "was how I had planned to point a moral to that jaunty little worldling."

"They who are reverend must strive to be also worthy," said the Prioress; "while they who count themselves to be worthy, must think charitably of those to whom they owe reverence. Came the robin to thee in the cloisters, Antony?"

The old woman's manner changed. She fixed her eyes upon the Prioress, and spoke with an air of detachment and of mystery. The very simplicity of her language seemed at once to lift the strange tale she told, into sublimity.

"Aye, he came. But not for crumbs; not for cheese; not to gossip with old Antony.

"He stood upon the coping, looking at me with his bright eye.

"'Well, little vain man!' said I. But he moved not.

"'Well, Master Pieman,' I said, 'art come to spy on holy ladies?' But never a flutter, never a chirp, gave he.

"So grave and yet war-like was his aspect, that at length I said: 'Well, Knight of the Bloody Vest! Hast thou come to carry off again our noble Prioress?' Upon which, instantly, he lifted up his voice, and burst into song; then flew to the doorway, turning and chirping, as if asking me to follow.

"Greatly marvelling at this behaviour on the part of the little bird I love, I forthwith set out to follow him.

"Along the passage, on swift wing, he flew; in and out of the empty cells, as if in search of something.' Then, while I was yet some little way behind, he vanished into the Reverend Mother's cell, and came not forth again.

"Laughing to myself at such presumption, I followed, saying: 'Ha, thou Knight of the Bloody Vest! What doest thou there? The Reverend Mother is away. What seekest thou in her chamber, Knight of the Bloody Vest?'

"But, reaching the doorway, at that moment, I found myself struck dumb by what I saw.

"No robin was there, but a most splendid Knight, in shining armour, kneeled upon his knees before the shrine of our Lady. A blood-red cross was on his breast. His dark head was uplifted. On his noble face was a look of pleading and of prayer.

"Marvelling, but unafraid, I crept in, and kneeled behind that splendid Knight. The look of pleading upon his face, inclined me also to prayer. His lips moved, as I had seen at the first; but while I stood upon my feet, I could hear no words. As soon as I too kneeled, I heard the Knight saying: 'Give her to me! Give her to me!' And at last: 'Mother of God, send her to me! Take pity on a hungry heart, a lonely home, a desolate hearth, and send her to me!'"

Mary Antony paused, fixing her eyes upon the rosy strip of sky, seen through her narrow window. Absorbed in the recital of her vision, she appeared to have forgotten the presence of the Prioress. She paused; and there was silence in the cell, for the Prioress made no sound.

Presently the old voice went on, once more.

"When the splendid Knight said: 'Send her to me,' a most wondrous thing did happen.

"Our blessed Lady, lifting her head, looked toward the door. Then raising her hand, she beckoned.

"No sooner did our Lady beckon, than I heard steps coming along the passage—that passage which I knew to be empty. The Knight heard them, also; for his heart began to beat so loudly that—kneeling behind—I could hear it.

"Our blessed Lady smiled.

"Then—in through the doorway came the Reverend Mother, walking with her head held high, and sunlight in her eyes, as I have ofttimes seen her walk in the garden in Springtime, when the birds are singing, and a scent of lilac is all around.

"She did not see old Mary Antony; but moving straight to where the Knight was kneeling, kneeled down beside him.

"Then the splendid Knight did hold out his hand. But the Reverend Mother's hands were clasped upon the cross at her breast, and she would not put her hand into the Knight's; but lifting her eyes to our Lady she said: 'Holy Mother of God, except thou thyself send me to him, I cannot go."

"And again the Knight said: 'Give her to me! Give her to me! Blessed Virgin, give her to me!'

"And the tears ran down the face of old Antony, because both those noble hearts were wrung with anguish. Yet only the merry Babe, peeping over the two bowed heads, saw that old Antony was there.

"Then a wondrous thing did happen.

"Stooping from her marble throne our Lady leaned, and taking the Reverend Mother's hand in hers, placed it herself in the outstretched hand of the Knight.

"At once a sound like many chimes of silver bells filled the air, and a voice, so wonderful that I did fall upon my face to the floor, said:

"'TAKE HER; SHE HATH BEEN EVER THINE. I HAVE BUT KEPT HER FOR THEE.'"

"When I lifted my head once more, the Reverend Mother and the splendid Knight had risen. Heaven was in their eyes. Her hand was in his. His arm was around her.

"As I looked, they turned together, passed out through the doorway, and paced slowly down the passage.

"I heard their steps growing fainter and yet more faint, until they reached the cloisters. Then all was still."

"Then I heard other steps arriving. I still kneeled on, fearful to move; because those earthly steps were drowning the sound of the silver chimes which filled the air.

"Then—why, then I saw the Reverend Mother, returned—and returned alone.

"So I cried out, because she had left that splendid Knight. And, as I cried, the silver bells fell silent, all grew dark around me, and I knew no more, until I woke up in mine own bed, tended by Sister Mary Rebecca, and Sister Teresa; with Abigail noisy hussy! helping to fetch and carry.

"But—when I close mine eyes—Ah, then! Yes, I hear again the sound of silver chimes. And some day I shall hear—shall hear again—that wondrous voice of—voice of tenderness, which said: 'Take her, she hath been ever—ever'——"

The old voice which had talked for so long a time, wavered, weakened, then of a sudden fell silent.

Mary Antony had dropped off to sleep.

Slowly the Prioress rose, feeling her way, as one blinded by too great a light.

She stood for some moments leaning against the doorpost, her hand upon the latch, watching the furrowed face upon the pillow, gently slumbering; still illumined by a halo of sunset light.

Then she opened the door, and passed out; closing it behind her.

As the Prioress closed the door, Mary Antony opened one eye.

Yea, verily! She was alone!

She raised herself upon the couch, listening intently.

Far away in the distance, she fancied she could hear the door of the Reverend Mother's chamber shut—yes!—and the turning of the key within the lock.

Then Mary Antony arose, tottered over to the crucifix, and, falling on her knees, lifted clasped hands to the dying Redeemer.

"O God," she said, "full well I know that to lie concerning holy things doth damn the soul forever. But the great Lord Bishop said she would thrust happiness from her with both hands, unless our Lady vouchsafed a vision. Gladly will I bear the endless torments of hell fires, that she may know fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. But, oh, Son of Mary, by the sorrows of our Lady's heart, by the yearnings of her love, I ask that—once a year—I may come out—to sit just for one hour on my jasper seat, and see the Reverend Mother walk, between the great Lord Bishop and the splendid Knight, up the wide golden stair. And some day at last, O Saviour Christ, I ask it of Thy wounds, 'Thy dying love, Thy broken heart, may the sin of Mary Antony—her great sin, her sin of thus lying about holy things—be forgiven her, because—because—she loved"——

Old Mary Antony fell forward on the stones. This time, she had really swooned.

It took the combined efforts of Sister Teresa, Sister Mary Rebecca, and Mother Sub-Prioress, to bring her back once more to consciousness.

It added to their anxiety that they could not call the Reverend Mother, she having already sent word that she would not come to the evening meal, and must not be disturbed, as she purposed passing the night in prayer and vigil.



CHAPTER XXX

THE HARDER PART

Dawn broke—a silver rift in the purple sky—and presently stole, in pearly light, through the oriel window. Upon the Prioress's table, lay a beautifully executed copy of the Pope's mandate. Beside it, carefully pieced together, the torn fragments of the Bishop's copy.

Also, open upon the table, lay the Gregorian Sacramentary, and near to it strips of parchment upon which the Prioress had copied two of those ancient prayers, appending to each a careful translation.

These are the sixth century prayers which the Prioress had found comfort in copying and translating, during the long hours of her vigil.

O God, the Protector of all that trust in Thee, without Whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us Thy mercy, that Thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal; Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake our Lord. Amen.

And on another strip of parchment:

O Lord, we beseech Thee mercifully to receive the prayers of Thy people who call upon Thee; and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then, in that darkest hour before the dawn, she had opened the heavy clasps of an even older volume, and copied a short prayer from the Gelasian Sacramentary, under date A.D. 492.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord, and my Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of Thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This appeared to have been copied last of all. The ink was still wet upon the parchment.

The candles had burned down to the sockets, and gone out. The Prioress's chair, pushed back from the table, was empty.

As the dawn crept in, it discovered her kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna, absorbed in prayer and meditation.

She had not yet taken her final decision as to the future; but her hesitation was now rather the slow, wondering, opening of the mind to accept an astounding fact, than any attempt to fight against it.

Not for one moment could she doubt that our Lady, in answer to Hugh's impassioned prayers, had chosen to make plain the Divine will, by means of this wonderful and most explicit vision to the aged lay-sister, Mary Antony.

When, having left Mary Antony, as she supposed, asleep, the Prioress had reached her own cell, her first adoring cry, as she prostrated herself before the shrine, had taken the form of the thanksgiving once offered by the Saviour: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

She and the Bishop had indeed been wise and prudent in their own estimation, as they discussed this difficult problem. Yet to them no clear light, no Divine vision, had been vouchsafed.

It was to this aged nun, the most simple—so thought the Prioress—the most humble, the most childlike in the community, that the revelation had been given.

The Prioress remembered the nosegay of weeds offered to our Lady; the games with peas; the childish pleasure in the society of the robin; all the many indications that second-childhood had gently come at the close of the long life of Mary Antony; just as the moon begins as a sickle turned one way and, after coming to the full, wanes at length to a sickle turned the other way; so, after ninety years of life's pilgrimage, Mary Antony was a little child again—and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven; and to such the Divine will is most easily revealed.

The Prioress was conscious that she and the Bishop—the wise and prudent—had so completely arrived at decisions, along the lines of their own points of view, that their minds were not ready to receive a Divine unveiling. But the simple, childlike mind of the old lay-sister, full only of humble faith and loving devotion, was ready; and to her the manifestation came.

No shade of doubt as to the genuineness of the vision entered the mind of the Prioress. She and the Bishop alone knew of the Knight's intrusion into the Nunnery, and of her interview with him in her cell.

Before going in search of the intruder, she had ordered Mary Antony to the kitchens; and disobedience to a command of the Reverend Mother, was a thing undreamed of in the Convent.

Afterwards, her anxiety lest any question should come up concerning the return of a twenty-first White Lady when but twenty had gone, was completely set at rest by that which had seemed to her old Antony's fortunate mistake in believing herself to have been mistaken.

In recounting the fictitious vision, with an almost uncanny cleverness, Mary Antony had described the Knight, not as he had appeared in the Prioress's cell, in tunic and hose, a simple dress of velvet and cloth, but in full panoply as a Knight-Crusader. The shining armour and the blood-red cross, fully in keeping with the vision, would have precluded the idea of an eye-witness of the actual scene, had such a thought unconsciously suggested itself to the Prioress.

As it was, it seemed beyond question that all the knowledge of Hugh shewn by the old lay-sister, of his person his attitude, his very words, could have come to her by Divine revelation alone. That being so, how could the Prioress presume to doubt the climax of the vision, when our blessed Lady placed her hand in Hugh's, uttering the wondrous words: "Take her. She hath been ever thine. I have but kept her for thee."

Over and over the Prioress repeated these words; over and over she thanked our Lady for having vouchsafed so explicit a revelation. Yet was she distressed that her inmost spirit failed to respond, acclaiming the words as divine. She knew they must be divine, yet could not feel that they were so.

As dawn crept into the cell, she found herself repeating again and again "A sign, a sign! Thy will was hid from me; yet I accept its revelation through this babe. But I ask a sign which shall speak to mine own heart, also! A sign, a sign!"

She rose and opened wide the casement, not of the oriel window, but of one to the right of the group of the Virgin and child, and near by it.

She was worn out both in mind and body, yet could not bring herself to leave the shrine or to seek her couch.

She remembered the example of that reverend and holy man, Bishop Wulstan. She had lately been reading, in the Chronicles of Florence, the monk of Worcester, how "in his early life, when appointed to be chanter and treasurer of the Church, Wulstan embraced the opportunity of serving God with less restraint, giving himself up to a contemplative life, going into the church day and night to pray and read the Bible. So devoted was he to sacred vigils that not only would he keep himself awake during the night, but day and night also; and when the urgency of nature at last compelled him to sleep, he did not pamper his limbs by resting on a bed or coverings, but would lie down for a short time on one of the benches of the Church, resting his head on the book which he had used for praying or reading."

The Prioress chanced to have read this passage aloud, in the Refectory, two days before.

As she stood in the dawn light, overcome with sleep, yet unwilling to leave her vigil at the shrine, she remembered the example of this greatly revered Bishop of Worcester, "a man of great piety and dovelike simplicity, one beloved of God, and of the people whom he ruled in all things," dead just over a hundred years, yet ever living in the memory of all.

So, remembering his example, the Prioress went to her table, and shutting the clasps of her treasured Gregorian Sacramentary, placed it on the floor before the shrine of the Virgin.

Then, flinging her cloak upon the ground, and a silk covering over the book, she sank down, stretched her weary limbs upon the cloak and laid her head on the Sacramentary, trusting that some of the many sacred prayers therein contained would pass into her mind while she slept.

Yet still her spirit cried: "A sign, a sign! However slight, however small; a sign mine own heart can understand."

Whether she slept a few moments only or an hour, she could not tell. Yet she felt strangely rested, when she was awakened by the sound of a most heavenly song outpoured. It flooded her cell with liquid trills, as of little silver bells.

The Prioress opened her eyes, without stirring.

Sunlight streamed in through the open window; and lo, upon the marble hand of the Madonna, that very hand which, in the vision, had taken hers and placed it within Hugh's, stood Mary Antony's robin, that gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest, pouring forth so wonderful a song of praise, and love, and fulness of joy, that it seemed as if his little ruffling throat must burst with the rush of joyous melody.

The robin sang. Our Lady smiled. The Babe on her knees looked merry.

The Prioress lay watching, not daring to move; her head resting on the Sacramentary.

Then into her mind there came the suggestion of a test—a sign.

"If he fly around the chamber," she whispered, "my place is here. But if he fly straight out into the open, then doth our blessed Lady bid me also to arise and go."

And, scarce had she so thought, when, with a last triumphant trill of joy, straight from our Lady's hand, like an arrow from the bow, the robin shot through the open casement, and out into the sunny, newly-awakened world beyond.

The Prioress rose, folded her cloak, placed the book back upon the table; then kneeled before the shrine, took off her cross of office, and laid it upon our Lady's hand, from whence the little bird had flown.

Then with bowed head, pale face, hands meekly crossed upon her breast, the Prioress knelt long in prayer.

The breeze of an early summer morn, blew in at the open window, and fanned her cheek.

In the garden without, the robin sang to his mate.

At length the Prioress rose, moving as one who walked in a strange dream, passed into the inner cell, and sought her couch.

The Bishop's prayer had been answered.

The Prioress had been given grace and strength to choose the harder part, believing the harder part to be, in very deed, God's will for her.

And, as she laid her head at last upon the pillow, a prayer from the Gregorian Sacramentary slipped into her mind, calming her to sleep, with its message of overruling power and eternal peace.

Almighty and everlasting God, Who dost govern all things in heaven and earth; Mercifully bear the supplications of Thy people, and grant us Thy peace, all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE CALL OF THE CURLEW

For the last time, the Knight waited in the crypt.

The men-at-arms, having deposited their burden before the altar, leaned each against a pillar, stolid and unobservant, but ready to drop to their knees so soon as the chanting of Vespers should reach the crypt from the choir above.

The man upon the stretcher lay motionless, with bandaged head; yet there was an alert brightness in his eyes, and the turn of his head betokened one who listened. A cloak of dark blue, bordered with silver, covered him, as a pall.

Hugh d'Argent stood in the shadow of a pillar facing the narrow archway in the wall from which the winding stairs led up to the clerestory.

From this position he could also command a view of the steps leading up into the crypt from the underground way, and of the ground to be traversed by the White Ladies as they passed from the steps to the staircase in the wall.

Here the Knight kept his final vigil.

A strange buoyancy possessed him. He seemed to have left his despondence, like a heavy weight, at the bottom of the river. From the moment when, his breath almost exhausted, he had seen and grasped the Bishop's stone, bringing it in triumph to the surface, Hugh had felt sure he would win. Aye, even before Symon had flung the stone; when, in reply to the doubt cast by him on our Lady's smile, the Knight had said: "I keep my trust in prayer," a joyous confidence had then and there awakened within him. He had stretched out the right hand of his withered faith, and lo, it had proved strong and vital.

Yet as, in the heavy silence of the crypt, he heard the turning of the key in the lock, his heart stood still, and every emotion hung suspended, as the first veiled figure—shadowy and ghostlike—moved into view.

It was not she.

The Knight's pulses throbbed again. His heart pounded violently as, keeping their measured distances, nine, ten, eleven, white figures passed.

Then—twelfth: a tall nun, almost her height; yet not she.

Then—thirteenth: Oh, blessed Virgin! Oh, saints of God! Mora! She, herself. Never could he fail to recognize her carriage, the regal poise of her head. However veiled, however shrouded, he could not be mistaken. It was Mora; and that she should be walking in this central position meant that she might with comparative safety, step aside. Yet, even this——

But, at that moment, passing him, she turned her head, and for an instant her eyes met the eyes of the Knight looking out from the shadows.

Another moment and she had vanished up the winding stairway in the wall.

But that instant was enough. As her eyes met his, Hugh d'Argent knew that his betrothed was once more his own.

His heart ceased pounding; his pulses beat steadily.

The calm of a vast, glad certainty enfolded him; a joy beyond belief. Yet he knew now that he had been sure of it, ever since he came up from the depths of the Severn into the summer sunshine, grasping the white stone.

"I keep my trust in prayer. . . . Give her to me! Give her to me! Blessed Virgin, give her to me! 'A sculptured smile'? Nay, my lord. I keep my trust in prayer!"

The solemn chanting of the monks, stole down from the distant choir. Vespers had begun.

The Knight strode to the altar, and knelt for some minutes, his hands clasped upon the crossed hilt of his sword.

Then he rose, and spoke in low tones to his men-at-arms.

"When a thrush calls, you will leave the crypt, and guard the entrance from without; allowing none, on any pretext, to pass within. When a blackbird whistles you will return, lift the stretcher, and pass with it, as heretofore, from the Cathedral to the hostel."

Next the Knight, returning to the altar, bent over the bandaged man upon the stretcher.

"Martin," he said, speaking very low, so that his trusted foster-brother alone could hear him. "All is well. Our pilgrimage is about to end, as we have hoped, in a great recovery and restoration. When the call of a curlew sounds, leap from the stretcher, leave the bandages beside it; go to the entrance, guarding it from within; but turn not thy head this way, until a blackbird whistles; upon which lose thyself among the pillars, letting no man see thee, until we have passed out. After which, make thy way out, as best thou canst, and join me at the hostel, entering by the garden and window, without letting thyself be seen in the courtyard."

The keen eyes below the bandage, smiled assent.

Stooping, the Knight lifted the cloak, fastened it to his left shoulder, and drew it around him, holding the greater part of it in many folds in his right hand. Then he moved back into the shadow of the pillar.

Above, the monks sang Nunc Dimittis.

By and by the voices fell silent.

Vespers were over.

Careful, shuffling feet were coming down the stairs within the wall.

One by one the white figures reappeared.

The Knight stood back, rigid, holding his breath.

As each nun stepped from the archway in the wall, on to the floor of the crypt, and moved toward the steps leading down to the subterranean way, she passed from the view of the nun following her, who was still one turn up the staircase. It was upon this the Knight had counted, when he laid his plains.

Six Seven Eight

Blessed Saint Joseph! How slowly they walked!

Nine Ten Eleven

The Knight gripped the cloak and moved a step further back into the shadow.

Twelve

Were all the pillars rocking? Was the great new Cathedral coming down upon his head?

Thirteen

The Prioress was beside him in the shadow.

She had stepped aside.

The twelfth White Lady was moving on, her back toward them.

The fourteenth was shuffling down, but had not yet appeared.

Hugh slipped his left arm about the Prioress, holding her close to him; then flung the folds of the cloak completely around her, and over his left shoulder, pressing her head down upon his breast.

Thus they stood, motionless; her face hidden, his eyes bent upon the narrow archway in the wall.

The fourteenth White Lady appeared; evidently noted a wider gap than she expected between herself and the distant figure almost at the steps, and hastened forward.

The fifteenth also hastened.

The sixteenth chanced to have taken the stairs more quickly and, appearing almost immediately, noticed no gap.

Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty

Not one had turned her head in the direction of the pillar. The procession was moving, with stately tread, along its accustomed way.

A delicious sense of security enveloped Hugh d'Argent.

The woman he loved was in his arms; she was his to shield, to guard, to hold for evermore.

Twenty-one Twenty-two

She had come to him—come to him of her own free will. Holding her thus, he remembered those wondrous moments at the entrance to the crypt. How hard it had been to loose her and leave her. Yet how glad he now was that he had done so.