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The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century

by Florence L. Barclay · English · Gutenberg #16368 · 709,604 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the Twelfth Century

Author: Florence L. Barclay


        
Release date: July 27, 2005 [eBook #16368]
                Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER: A ROMANCE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY ***




Produced by Al Haines










The White Ladies of Worcester


A Romance of the Twelfth Century



by

Florence L. Barclay




Author of "The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone," etc.






G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press

1917




COPYRIGHT, 1917

BY

FLORENCE L. BARCLAY






The Knickerbocker Press, New York




TO

FAITHFUL HEARTS

ALL THE WORLD OVER




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

       I.  THE SUBTERRANEAN WAY
      II.  SISTER MARY ANTONY DISCOURSES
     III.  THE PRIORESS PASSES
      IV.  "GIVE ME TENDERNESS," SHE SAID
       V.  THE WAYWARD NUN
      VI.  THE KNIGHT OF THE BLOODY VEST
     VII.  THE MADONNA IN THE CLOISTER
    VIII.  ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM
      IX.  THE PRIORESS SHUTS THE DOOR
       X.  "I KNOW YOU FOR A MAN"
      XI.  THE YEARS ROLL BACK
     XII.  ALAS, THE PITY OF IT!
    XIII.  "SEND HER TO ME!"
     XIV.  FAREWELL HERE, AND NOW
      XV.  "SHARPEN THE WITS OF MARY ANTONY"
     XVI.  THE ECHO OF WILD VOICES
    XVII.  THE DIMNESS OF MARY ANTONY
   XVIII.  IN THE CATHEDRAL CRYPT
     XIX.  THE BISHOP PUTS ON HIS BIRETTA
      XX.  HOLLY AND MISTLETOE
     XXI.  SO MUCH FOR SERAPHINE
    XXII.  WHAT BROTHER PHILIP HAD TO TELL
   XXIII.  THE MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL
    XXIV.  THE POPE'S MANDATE
     XXV.  MARY ANTONY RECEIVES THE BISHOP
    XXVI.  LOVE NEVER FAILETH
   XXVII.  THE WOMAN AND HER CONSCIENCE
  XXVIII.  THE WHITE STONE
    XXIX.  THE VISION OF MARY ANTONY
     XXX.  THE HARDER PART
    XXXI.  THE CALL OF THE CURLEW
   XXXII.  A GREAT RECOVERY AND RESTORATION
  XXXIII.  MARY ANTONY HOLDS THE PORT
   XXXIV.  MORA DE NORELLE
    XXXV.  IN THE ARBOUR OF GOLDEN ROSES
   XXXVI.  STRONG TO ACT; ABLE TO ENDURE
  XXXVII.  WHAT MOTHER SUB-PRIORESS KNEW
 XXXVIII.  THE BISHOP KEEPS VIGIL
   XXXIX.  THE "SPLENDID KNIGHT"
      XL.  THE HEART OF A NUN
     XLI.  WHAT THE BISHOP REMEMBERED
    XLII.  THE WARNING
   XLIII.  MORA MOUNTS TO THE BATTLEMENTS
    XLIV.  "I LOVE THEE"
     XLV.  THE SONG OF THE THRUSH
    XLVI.  "HOW SHALL I LET THEE GO?"
   XLVII.  THE BISHOP is TAKEN UNAWARES
  XLVIII.  A STRANGE CHANCE
    XLIX.  TWICE DECEIVED
       L.  THE SILVER SHIELD
      LI.  TWO NOBLE HEARTS GO DIFFERENT WAYS
     LII.  THE ANGEL-CHILD
    LIII.  ON THE HOLY MOUNT
     LIV.  THE UNSEEN PRESENCE
      LV.  THE HEART OF A WOMAN
     LVI.  THE TRUE VISION
    LVII.  "I CHOOSE TO RIDE ALONE"
   LVIII.  THE WARRIOR HEART
     LIX.  THE MADONNA IN THE HOME
      LX.  THE CONVENT BELL




The White Ladies of Worcester


CHAPTER I

THE SUBTERRANEAN WAY

The slanting rays of afternoon sunshine, pouring through stone arches,
lay in broad, golden bands, upon the flags of the Convent cloister.

The old lay-sister, Mary Antony, stepped from the cool shade of the
cell passage and, blinking at the sunshine, shuffled slowly to her
appointed post at the top of the crypt steps, up which would shortly
pass the silent procession of nuns returning from Vespers.

Daily they went, and daily they returned, by the underground way, a
passage over a mile in length, leading from the Nunnery of the White
Ladies at Whytstone in Claines, to the Church of St. Mary and St.
Peter, the noble Cathedral within the walls of the city of Worcester.

Entering this passage from the crypt in their own cloisters, they
walked in darkness below the sunny meadows, passed beneath the
Fore-gate, moving in silent procession under the busy streets, until
they reached the crypt of the Cathedral.

From the crypt, a winding stairway in the wall led up to a chamber
above the choir, whence, unseeing and unseen, the White Ladies of
Worcester daily heard the holy monks below chant Vespers.

To Sister Mary Antony fell the task of counting the five-and-twenty
veiled figures, as they passed down the steps and disappeared beneath
the ground, and of again counting them as they reappeared, and moved in
stately silence along the cloister, each entering her own cell, to
spend, in prayer and adoration, the hours until the Refectory bell
should call them to the evening meal.

This counting of the White Ladies dated from the day, now more than
half a century ago, when Sister Agatha, weakened by prolonged fasting,
and chancing to walk last in the procession, fainted and, falling
silently, remained behind, unnoticed, in the solitude and darkness.

It was the habit of this saintly lady to abide in her own cell after
Vespers, dispensing with the evening meal; thus her absence was not
discovered until the following morning when Mary Antony, finding the
cell empty, hastened to report that Sister Agatha having long, like
Enoch, walked with God, had, even, as Enoch, been translated!

The nuns who flocked to the cell, inclining to Mary Antony's view of
the strange happening, kneeled upon the floor before the empty couch,
and worshipped.

The Prioress of that time, however, being of a practical turn of mind,
ordered the immediate lighting of the lanterns, and herself descended
to search the underground way.

She did not need to go far.

The saintly spirit of Sister Agatha had indeed been translated.

They found her frail body lying prone against the door, the hands
broken and torn by much wild beating upon its studded panels.

She had run to and fro in the dank darkness, beating first upon the
door beneath the Convent cloisters, then upon the door, a mile away,
leading into the Cathedral crypt.

But the nuns were shut into their cells, beyond the cloister; the good
people of Worcester city slept peacefully, not dreaming of the
despairing figure running to and fro beneath them--tottering,
stumbling, falling, arising to fall again, yet hurrying blindly
onwards; and the Cathedral Sacristan, when questioned, confessed that,
hearing cries and rappings coming from the crypt at a late hour, he
speedily locked the outer gate, said an "Ave," and went home to supper;
well knowing that, at such a time, none save spirits of evil would be
wandering below, in so great torment.

Thus, through much tribulation, poor Sister Agatha entered into rest;
being held in deepest reverence ever after.

More than fifty years had gone by.  The Prioress of that day, and most
of those who walked in that procession, had long lain beside Sister
Agatha in the Convent burying-ground.  But Mary Antony, now oldest of
the lay-sisters, never failed to make careful count, as each veiled
figure passed, nor to impart the mournful reason for this necessity to
all new-comers.  So that the nun whose turn it was to walk last in the
procession, prayed that she might not hear behind her the running feet
of Sister Agatha; while none went alone into the cloisters after dark,
lest they should hear the poor thin hands of Sister Agatha beating upon
the panels of the door.

Thus does the anguish of a tortured brain leave its imperishable
impress upon the surroundings in which the mind once suffered, though
the freed spirit may have long forgotten, in the peace of Paradise,
that slight affliction, which was but for a moment, through which it
passed to the eternal weight of glory.

Of late, the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, had grown fearful lest she
should make mistake in this solemn office of the counting.  Therefore,
in the secret of her own heart, she devised a plan, which she carried
out under cover of her scapulary.  Twenty-five dried peas she held
ready in her wallet; then, as each veiled figure, having mounted the
steps leading from the crypt doorway, moved slowly past her, she
dropped a pea with her right hand into her left.  When all the holy
Ladies had passed, if all had returned, five-and-twenty peas lay in her
left hand, none remained in the wallet.

This secret dropping of peas became a kind of game to Mary Antony.
She kept the peas in a small linen bag, and often took them out and
played with them when alone in her cell, placing them all in a row, and
settling, to her own satisfaction, which peas should represent the
various holy Ladies.

A large white pea, of finer aspect than the rest, stood for the noble
Prioress herself; a somewhat shrivelled pea, hard, brown, and wizened,
did duty as Mother Sub-Prioress, an elderly nun, not loved by Mary
Antony because of her sharp tongue and strict fault-finding ways; while
a pale and speckled pea became Sister Mary Rebecca, held in high scorn
by the old lay-sister, as a traitress, sneak, and liar, for if ever
tale of wrong or shame was whispered in the Convent, it could be traced
for place of origin to the slanderous tongue and crooked mind of Sister
Mary Rebecca.

When all the peas in line upon the floor of her cell were named, old
Mary Antony marked out a distant flagstone, on which the sunlight fell,
as heaven; another, partially in shadow, purgatory; a third, in a far
corner of exceeding darkness, hell.  She then proceeded, with
well-directed fillip of thumb and middle finger, to send the holy
Ladies there where, in her judgment, they belonged.

If the game went well, the noble Prioress landed safely in heaven,
without even the most transitory visit to purgatory; Mother
Sub-Prioress, rolling into purgatory, remained there; while the pale
and speckled pea went straight to hell!

When these were safely landed, Mary Antony rubbed her hands and,
chuckling gleefully, finished the game at gay hap-hazard, it being of
less importance where the rest of the holy Ladies chanced to go.




CHAPTER II

SISTER MARY ANTONY DISCOURSES

As Mary Antony shuffled slowly from the shadow into the sunshine, a gay
little flutter of wings preceded her, and a robin perched upon the
parapet behind the stone seat upon which it was the lay-sister's custom
to await the sound of the turning of the key in the lock of the heavy
door beneath the cloisters.

"Thou good-for-nothing imp!" exclaimed Mary Antony, her old face
crinkling with delight.  "Thou little vain man, in thy red jerkin!
Beshrew thine impudence, intruding into a place where women alone do
dwell, and no male thing may enter.  I would have thee take warning by
the fate of the baker's boy, who dared to climb into a tree, so that he
might peep over the wall and spy upon the holy Ladies in their garden.
Boasting afterward of that which he had done, and making merry over
that which he pretended to have seen, our great Lord Bishop heard of
it, and sent and took that baker's boy, and though he cried for mercy,
swearing the whole tale was an empty boast, they put out his bold eyes
with heated tongs, and hanged him from the very branches he had
climbed.  They'd do the like to thee, thou little vain man, if Mary
Antony reported on thy ways.  Wouldst like to hang, in thy red doublet?"

The robin had heard this warning tale many times already, told by old
Mary Antony with infinite variety.

Sometimes the tongue of the baker's boy was cut out at the roots;
sometimes he lost his ears, or again, he was tied to a cart-tail, and
flogged through the Tything.  Often he became a pieman, and once he was
a turnspit in the household of the Lord Bishop himself.  But, whatever
the preliminaries, and whether baker, pieman, or turnspit, his final
catastrophe was always the same: he was hanged from a bough of the very
tree into which, impious and greatly daring, he had climbed.

This was an ancient tale.  All who might vouch for it, saving the old
lay-sister, had passed away; and, of late, Mary Antony had been
strictly forbidden by the Reverend Mother, to tell it to new-comers, or
to speak of it to any of the nuns.

So, daily, she told it to the robin; and he, being neither baker's lad,
pieman, nor turnspit, and having a conscience void of offence, would
listen, wholly unafraid; then, hopping nearer to Mary Antony, would
look up at her, eager inquiry in his bright eyes.

On this particular afternoon he flew up into the very tree climbed by
the prying and ill-fated baker's lad, settled on a bough which branched
out over the Convent wall, and poured forth a gay trill of song.

"Ha, thou little vain man, in thy brown and red suit!" chuckled Mary
Antony, leaning her gnarled hands on the stone parapet, as she stood
framed in one of the cloister arches overlooking the garden.  "Is that
thy little 'grace before meat'?  But, I pray thee, Sir Robin, who said
there was cheese in my wallet?  Nay, is there like to be cheese in a
wallet already containing five-and-twenty holy Ladies on their way back
from Vespers?  Out upon thee for a most irreverent little glutton!  I
fear me thou hast not only a high look, thou hast also a proud stomach;
just the reverse of the great French Cardinal who came, with much pomp,
to visit us at Easter time.  He had a proud look and a--  Come down
again, thou little naughty man, and I will tell thee what the Lord
Cardinal had under his crimson sash.  'Tis not a thing to shout to the
tree-tops.  I might have to recite ten Paternosters, if I let thee
tempt me so to do.  For whispering it in thine ear, I should but say
one; for having remarked it, none at all.  Facts are facts; and, even
in the case of so weighty a fact, the responsibility rests not upon the
beholder."

Mary Antony leaned over the parapet, looking upward.  The afternoon
sunlight fell full upon the russet parchment of her kind old face,
shewing the web of wrinkles spun by ninety years of the gently turning
wheel of time.

But the robin, perched upon the bough, trilled and sang, unmoved.  He
was weary of tales of bakers and piemen.  He was not at all curious as
to what had been beneath the French Cardinal's crimson sash.  He wanted
the tasty morsels which he knew lay concealed in Sister Mary Antony's
leathern wallet.  So he stayed on the bough and sang.

The old face, peering up from between the pillars, softened into
tenderness at the robin's song.

"I cannot let thy little grace return unto thee void," she said, and
fumbled at the fastenings of her wallet.

A flick of wings, a flash of red.  The robin had dropped from the
bough, and perched beside her.

She doled out crumbs, and fragments of cheese, pushing them toward him
along the parapet; leaving her fingers near, to see how close he would
adventure to her hand.

She watched him peck a morsel of cheese into five tiny pieces, then
fly, with full beak, on eager wing, to the hidden nest, from which five
gaping mouths shrieked a shrill and hungry welcome.  Then, back
again--swift as an arrow from the archer's bow--noting, with bright
eye, and head turned sidewise, that the hand resting on the coping had
moved nearer; yet brave to take all risks for the sake of those yellow
beaks, which would gape wide, in expectation, at sound of the beat of
his wings.

"Feed thyself, thou little worldling!" chuckled old Antony, and covered
the remaining bits of cheese with her hand.  "Who art thou to come here
presuming to teach thy betters lessons of self-sacrifice?  First feed
thyself; then give to the hungry, the fragments that remain.  Had I
five squealing children here--which Heaven forbid--I should eat mine
own mess, and count myself charitable if I let them lick the dish.  The
holy Ladies give to the poor at the Convent gate, that for which they
have no further use.  Does thy jaunty fatherhood presume to shame our
saintly celibacy?  Mother Sub-Prioress did chide me sharply because, to
a poor soul with many hungry mouths to feed, I gave a good piece of
venison, and not the piece which was tainted.  Truth to tell, I had
already made away with the tainted piece; but Mother Sub-Prioress was
pleased to think it was in the pot, seething for the holy Ladies'
evening meal; and wherefore should Mother Sub-Prioress not think as she
pleased?

"'Woman!' she cried; 'Woman!'--and when Mother Sub-Prioress says
'Woman!' the woman she addresses feels her estate would be higher had
God Almighty been pleased to have let her be the Man, or even the
Serpent, so much contempt does Mother Sub-Prioress infuse into the
name--'Woman!' said Mother Sub-Prioress, 'wouldst thou make all the
Ladies of the Convent ill?'

"'Nay,' said I, 'that would I not.  Yet, if any needs must be ill,
'twere easier to tend the holy Ladies in their cells, than the Poor, in
humble homes, outside the Convent walls, tossing on beds of rushes.'

"'Tush, fool!' snarled Mother Sub-Prioress.  "'The Poor are not easily
made ill.'

"Tush indeed!  I tell thee, little bright-eyed man, old Antony, can
'tush' to better purpose!  That night there were strong purging herbs
in the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress.  Yet she did but keep her bed for
one day.  Like the Poor, she is not easily made ill! . . .  Well, have
thy way; only peck not my fingers, Master Robin, or I will have thee
flogged through the Tything at the cart-tail, as was done to a certain
pieman, whose history I will now relate.

"Once upon a time, when Sister Mary Antony was young, and fair to look
upon--Nay, wink not thy naughty eye----"

At that moment came the sound of a key turning slowly in the lock of
the door at the bottom of the steps leading from the crypt to the
cloister.




CHAPTER III

THE PRIORESS PASSES

A key turned slowly in the lock of the oaken door at the entrance to
the underground way.

The old lay-sister seized her wallet and pulled out the bag of peas.

Below, the heavy door swung back upon its hinges.

Mary Antony dropped upon her knees to the right of the steps, her hands
hidden beneath her scapulary, her eyes bent in lowly reverence upon the
sunlit flagstones, her lips mumbling chance sentences from the Psalter.

The measured sound of softly moving feet drew near, slightly shuffling
as they reached the steps and began to mount, up from the mile-long
darkness, into the sunset light.

First to appear was a young lay-sister, carrying a lantern.  Hastening
up the steps, she extinguished the flame, grown sickly in the sunshine,
placed the lantern in a niche, and, dropping upon her knees, opposite
old Mary Antony, sought to join in the latter's pious recitations.

"_Adhaesit pavimento anima mea_," chanted Mary Antony.  "Wherefore are
the holy Ladies late to-day?"

"One fell to weeping in the darkness," intoned the young lay-sister,
"whereupon Mother Sub-Prioress caused all to stand still while she
strove, by the light of my lantern held high, to discover who had burst
forth with a sob.  None shewing traces of tears, she gave me back the
lantern, herself walking last in the line, as all moved on."

"_Convertentur ad vesperam_, and the devil catch the hindmost," chanted
Mary Antony, with fervour.

"Amen," intoned Sister Abigail, eyes bent upon the ground; for the tall
figure of the Prioress, mounting the steps, now came into view.

The Prioress passed up the cloister with a stately grace of motion
which, even beneath the heavy cloth of her white robe, revealed the
noble length of supple limbs.  Her arms hung by her sides, swaying
gently as she walked.  There was a look of strength and of restfulness
about the long fingers and beautifully moulded hands.  Her face, calm
and purposeful, was lifted to the sunlight.  Suffering and sorrow had
left thereon indelible marks; but the clear grey eyes, beneath level
brows, were luminous with a light betokening the victory of a pure and
noble spirit over passionate and most human flesh.

No sinner, in her presence, ever felt crushed by hopeless weight of
sin; no saint, before the gaze of her calm eyes, felt sure of being
altogether faultless.

So truly was she woman, that all humanity seemed lifted to her level;
so completely was she saint, that sin did slink away abashed before her
coming.

They who feared her most, were most conscious of her kindness.  They
who loved her best, were least able to venture near.

In the first bloom of her womanhood she had left the world, resigning
high rank, fair lands, and the wealth which makes for power.  Her faith
in human love having been rudely shattered, she had sought security in
Divine compassion, and consolation in the daily contemplation of the
Man of Sorrows.  In her cell, on a rough wooden cross, hung a life-size
figure of the dying Saviour.

She had not reached her twenty-fifth year when, fleeing from the world,
she joined the Order of the White Ladies of Worcester, and passed into
the seclusion and outward calm of the Nunnery at Whytstone.

Five years later, on the death of the aged Prioress, she was elected,
by a large majority, to fill the vacant place.

She had now, during two years, ruled the Nunnery wisely and well.

She had ruled her own spirit, even better.  She had won the victory
over the World and the Flesh; there remained but the Devil.  The Devil,
alas, always remains.

As she moved, with uplifted brow and mien of calm detachment, along the
sunlit cloister to the lofty, stone passage, within, the Convent, she
was feared by many, loved by most, and obeyed by all.

And, as she passed, old Mary Antony, bowing almost to the ground,
dropped a large white pea, from between her right thumb and finger,
into the horny palm of her left hand.

Behind the Prioress there followed a nun, tall also, but ungainly.  Her
short-sighted eyes peered shiftily to right and left; her long nose
went on before, scenting possible scandal and wrong-doing; her weak
lips let loose a ready smile, insinuating, crafty, apologetic.  She
walked with hands crossed upon her breast, in attitude of adoration and
humility.  As she moved by, old Mary Antony let drop the pale and
speckled pea.

Keeping their distances, mostly with shrouded faces, bent heads, and
folded hands, all the White Ladies passed.

Each went in silence to her cell, there kneeling in prayer and
contemplation until the Refectory bell should call to the evening meal.

As the last, save one, went by, the keen eyes of the old lay-sister
noted that her hands were clenched against her breast, that she
stumbled at the topmost step, and caught her breath with a half sob.

Behind her, moving quickly, came the spare form of the Sub-Prioress,
ferret-faced, alert, vigilant; fearful lest sin should go unpunished;
wishful to be the punisher.

She must have heard the half-strangled sob burst from the slight figure
stumbling up the steps before her, had not old Mary Antony been
suddenly moved at that moment to uplift her voice in a cracked and
raucous "Amen."

Startled, and vexed at being startled, the Sub-Prioress turned upon
Mary Antony.

"Peace, woman!" she said.  "The Convent cloister is not a hen-yard.
Such ill-timed devotion well-nigh merits penance.  Rise from thy knees,
and go at once about thy business."

The Sub-Prioress hastened on.

Scowling darkly, old Antony bent forward, looking, past Mother
Sub-Prioress, up the cloister to the distant passage.

Sister Mary Seraphine had reached her cell.  The door was shut.

Old Antony's knees creaked as she arose, but her wizened face was once
more cheerful.

"Beans in her broth to-night," she said.  "One for 'woman'; another for
the hen-yard; a third for threatening penance when I did but chant a
melodious 'Amen.'  I'll give her beans--castor beans!"

Down the steps she went, pushed the heavy door to, locked it, and drew
forth the key; then turned her steps toward the cell of the Reverend
Mother.

On her way thither, she paused at a certain door and listened, her ear
against the oaken panel.  Then she hurried onward, knocked upon the
door of the Reverend Mother's cell and, being bidden to enter, passed
within, closed the door behind her, and dropped upon her knees.

The Prioress stood beside the casement, gazing at the golden glory of
the sunset.  She was, for the moment, unconscious of her surroundings.
Her mind was away behind those crimson battlements.

Presently she turned and saw the old woman, kneeling at the door.

"How now, dear Antony?" she said, kindly.  "Get up!  Hang the key in
its appointed place, and make me thy report.  Have all returned?  As
always, is all well?"

The old lay-sister rose, hung the massive key upon a nail; then came to
the feet of the Prioress, and knelt again.

"Reverend Mother," she said, "all who went forth have returned.  But
all is not well.  Sister Mary Seraphine is uttering wild cries in her
cell; and much I fear me, Mother Sub-Prioress may pass by, and hear
her."

The face of the Prioress grew stern and sad; yet, withal, tender.  She
raised the lay-sister, and gently patted the old hands which trembled.

"Go thy ways, dear Antony," she said.  "I myself will visit the little
Sister in her cell.  None will attempt to enter while I am there."




CHAPTER IV

"GIVE ME TENDERNESS," SHE SAID

The Prioress knelt before a marble group of the Virgin and Child,
placed where the rays of evening sunshine, entering through the western
casement, played over its white beauty, shedding a radiance on the pure
face of the Madonna, and a halo of golden glory around the Infant
Christ.

"Mother of God," prayed the Prioress, with folded hands, "give me
patience in dealing with wilfulness; grant me wisdom to cope with
unreason; may it be given me to share the pain of this heart in
torment, even as--when thou didst witness the sufferings of thy dear
Son, our Lord, on Calvary--a sword pierced through thine own soul also.

"Give me this gift of sympathy with suffering, though the cross be not
mine own, but another's.

"But give me firmness and authority: even as when thou didst say to the
servants at Cana: 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.'"

The Prioress waited, with bowed head.

Then, of a sudden she put forth her hand, and touched the marble foot
of the Babe.

"Give me tenderness," she said.




CHAPTER V

THE WAYWARD NUN

Sister Mary Seraphine lay prone upon the floor of her cell.

Tightly clenched in her hands were fragments of her torn veil.

She beat her knuckles upon the stones with rhythmic regularity; then,
when her arms would lift no longer, took up the measure with her toes,
in wild imitation of a galloping horse.

As she lay, she repeated with monotonous reiteration: "Trappings of
crimson, and silver bells: mane and tail, like foam of the waves; a
palfrey as white as snow!"

The Prioress entered, closed the door behind her, and looked
searchingly at the prostrate figure; then, lifting the master-key which
hung from her girdle, locked the door on the inside.

Sister Mary Seraphine had been silent long enough to hear the closing
and locking of the door.

Now she started afresh.

"Trappings of crimson, and silver bells----"

The Prioress walked over to the narrow casement, and stood looking out
at the rosy clouds wreathing a pale green sky.

"Oh! . . .  Oh! . . .  Oh! . . ." wailed Sister Mary Seraphine,
writhing upon the floor; "mane and tail, like foam of the waves; a
palfrey as white as snow!"

The Prioress watched the swallows on swift wing, chasing flies in the
evening light.

So complete was the silence, that Sister Mary
Seraphine--notwithstanding that turning of the key in the lock--fancied
she must be alone.

"Trappings of crimson, and silver bells!" she declaimed with vehemence;
then lifted her face to peep, and saw the tall figure of the Prioress
standing at the casement.

Instantly, Sister Mary Seraphine dropped her head.

"Mane and tail," she began--then her courage failed; the "foam of the
waves" quavered into indecision; and indecision, in such a case, is
fatal.

For a while she lay quite still, moaning plaintively, then, of a
sudden, quivered from head to foot, starting up alert, as if to listen.

"Wilfred!" she shrieked; "Wilfred!  Are you coming to save me?"

Then she opened her eyes, and peeped again.

The Prioress, wholly unmoved by the impending advent of "Wilfred,"
stood at the casement, calmly watching the swallows.

Sister Mary Seraphine began to weep.

At last the passionate sobbing ceased.

Unbroken silence reigned in the cell.

From without, the latch of the door was lifted; but the lock held.

Presently Sister Mary Seraphine dragged herself to the feet of the
Prioress, seized the hem of her robe, and kissed it.

Then the Prioress turned.  She firmly withdrew her robe from those
clinging hands; yet looked, with eyes of tender compassion, upon the
kneeling figure at her feet.

"Sister Seraphine," she said, "--for you must shew true penitence e'er
I can permit you to be called by our Lady's name--you will now come to
my cell, where I will presently speak with you."

Sister Seraphine instantly fell prone.

"I cannot walk," she said.

"You will not walk," replied the Prioress, sternly.  "You will travel
upon your hands and knees."

She crossed to the door, unlocked and set it wide.

"Moreover," she added, from the doorway, "if you do not appear in my
presence in reasonable time, I shall be constrained to send for Mother
Sub-Prioress."

The cell of the Prioress was situated at the opposite end of the long,
stone passage; but in less than reasonable time, Sister Seraphine
crawled in.

The unwonted exercise had had a most salutary effect upon her frame of
mind.

Her straight habit, of heavy cloth, had rendered progress upon her
knees awkward and difficult.  Her hands had become entangled in her
torn veil.  Each moment she had feared lest cell doors, on either side,
should open; old Antony might appear from the cloisters, or--greatest
disaster of all--Mother Sub-Prioress might advance toward her from the
Refectory stairs!  In order to attain a greater rate of speed, she had
tried lifting her knees, as elephants lift their feet.  This mode of
progress, though ungainly, had proved efficacious; but would have been
distinctly mirth-provoking to beholders.  The stones had hurt her hands
and knees far more than she hurt them when she beat upon the floor of
her own cell.

She arrived at the Reverend Mother's footstool, heated in mind and
body, ashamed of herself, vexed with her garments, in fact in an
altogether saner frame of mind than when she had called upon "Wilfred,"
and made reiterated mention of trappings of crimson and silver bells.

Perhaps the Prioress had foreseen this result, when she imposed the
penance.  Leniency or sympathy, at that moment, would have been fatal
and foolish; and had not the Prioress made special petition for wisdom?

She was seated at her table, when Sister Seraphine bumped and shuffled
into view.  She did not raise her eyes from the illuminated missal she
was studying.  One hand lay on the massive clasp, the other rested in
readiness to turn the page.  Her noble form seemed stately calm
personified.

When she heard Sister Seraphine panting close to her foot, she spoke;
still without lifting her eyes.

"You may rise to your feet," she said, "and shut to the door."

Then the waiting hand turned the page, and silence fell.

"You may arrange the disorder of your dress," said the Prioress, and
turned another page.

When at length she looked up, Sister Seraphine, clothed and apparently
in her right mind, stood humbly near the door.

The Prioress closed the book, and shut the heavy clasps.

Then she pointed to an oaken stool, signing to the nun to draw it
forward.

"Be seated, my child," she said, in tones of infinite tenderness.
"There is much which must now be said, and your mind will pay better
heed, if your body be at rest."

With her steadfast eyes the Prioress searched the pretty, flushed face,
swollen with weeping, and now gathering a look of petulant defiance,
thinly veiled beneath surface humility.

"What was the cause of this outburst, my child?" asked the Prioress,
very gently.

"While in the Cathedral, Reverend Mother, up in our gallery, I, being
placed not far from a window, heard, in a moment of silence, the
neighing of a horse in the street without.  It was like to the neighing
of mine own lovely palfrey, waiting in the castle court at home, until
I should come down and mount him.  Each time that steed neighed, I
could see Snowflake more clearly, in trappings of gay crimson, with
silver bells, amid many others prancing impatiently, champing their
bits as they waited; for it pleased me to come out last, when all were
mounted.  Then the riders lifted their plumed caps when I appeared,
while Wilfred, pushing my page aside, did swing me into the saddle.
Thus, with shouting and laughter and winding of horn, we would all ride
out to the hunt or the tourney; I first, on Snowflake; Wilfred, close
behind."

Very quietly the Prioress sat listening.  She did not take her eyes
from the flushed face.  A slight colour tinged her own cheeks.

"Who was Wilfred?" she asked, when Sister Seraphine paused for breath.

"My cousin, whom I should have wed if----"

"If?"

"If I had not left the world."

The Prioress considered this.

"If your heart was set upon wedding your cousin, my child, why did you
profess a vocation and, renouncing all worldly and carnal desires, gain
admission to our sacred Order?"

"My heart was not set on marrying my cousin!" cried Sister Seraphine,
with petulance.  "I was weary of Wilfred.  I was weary of everything!
I wanted to profess.  I wished to become a nun.  There were people I
could punish, and people I could surprise, better so, than in any other
way.  But Wilfred said that, when the time came, he would be there to
carry me off."

"And--when the time came?"

"He was not there.  I never saw him again."

The Prioress turned, and looked out through the oriel window.  She
seemed to be weighing, carefully, what she should say.

When at length she spoke, she kept her eyes fixed upon the waving
tree-tops beyond the Convent wall.

"Sister Seraphine," she said, "many who embrace the religious life,
know what it is to pass through the experience you have now had; but,
as a rule, they fight the temptation and conquer it in the secret of
their own hearts, in the silence of their own cells.

"Memories of the life that was, before, choosing the better part, we
left the world, come back to haunt us, with a wanton sweetness.  Such
memories cannot change the state, fixed forever by our vows; but they
may awaken in us vain regrets or worldly longings.  Therein lies their
sinfulness.

"To help you against this danger, I will now give you two prayers,
which you must commit to memory, and repeat whenever need arises.  The
first is from the Breviary."

The Prioress drew toward her a black book with silver clasps, opened
it, and read therefrom a short prayer in Latin.  But seeing no light of
response or of intelligence upon the face of Sister Seraphine, she
slowly repeated a translation.


_Almighty and Everlasting God, grant that our wills be ever meekly
subject to Thy will, and our hearts be ever honestly ready to serve
Thee.  Amen._


Her eyes rested, with a wistful smile, upon the book.

"This prayer might suffice," she said, "if our hearts were truly
honest, if our wills were ever yielded.  But, alas, our hearts are
deceitful above all things, and our wills are apt to turn traitor to
our good intentions.

"Therefore I have found for you, in the Gregorian Sacramentary, another
prayer--less well-known, yet much more ancient, written over six
hundred years ago.  It deals effectually with the deceitful heart, the
insidious, tempting thoughts, and the unstable will.  Here is a
translation which I have myself inscribed upon the margin."

The Prioress laid her folded hands upon the missal and as she repeated
the ancient sixth-century prayer, in all its depth of inspired
simplicity, her voice thrilled with deep emotion, for she was giving to
another that which had meant infinitely much to her own inner life.


_Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and
from Whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the
inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and
worthily magnify Thy Holy Name, through Christ our Lord.  Amen._


The Prioress turned her face from Sister Seraphine's unresponsive
countenance and fixed her eyes once more upon the tree-tops.  She was
thinking of the long years of secret conflict, known only to Him from
Whom no secrets are hid; of the constant cleansing of her thoughts, for
which she had so earnestly pleaded; of the fear lest she should never
worthily magnify that Holy Name.

Presently--her heart filled with humble tenderness--she turned to
Sister Seraphine.

"These prayers, my child, which you will commit to memory before you
sleep this night, will protect you from a too insistent recollection of
the world you have resigned; and will assist you, with real inward
thoroughness, to die daily to self, in order that the Holy Name of our
dear Lord may be more worthily magnified in you."

But, alas! this gentle treatment, these long silences, this quiet
recitation of holy prayers, had but stirred the naughty spirit in
Sister Seraphine.

Her shallow nature failed to understand the deeps of the noble heart,
dealing thus tenderly with her.  She measured its ocean-wide greatness,
by the little artificial runnels of her own morbid emotions.  She
mistook gentleness for weakness; calm self-control, for lack of
strength of will.  Her wholesome awe of the Prioress was forgotten.

"But I do not want to die!" she exclaimed.  "I want to live--to
live--to live!"

The Prioress looked up, astonished.

The surface humility had departed from the swollen countenance of
Sister Seraphine.  The petulant defiance was plainly visible.

"Kneel!" commanded the Prioress, with authority.

The wayward nun jerked down upon her knees, upsetting the stool behind
her.

The Prioress made a quick movement, then restrained herself.  She had
prayed for patience in dealing with wilfulness.

"We die that we may live," she said, solemnly.  "Sister Seraphine, this
is the lesson your wayward heart must learn.  Dying to self, we live
unto God.  Dying to sin, we live unto righteousness.  Dying to the
world, we find the Life Eternal."

On her knees upon the floor, Sister Seraphine felt her position to be
such as lent itself to pathos.

"But I want to _live_ to the world!" she cried, and burst into tears.

Now Convent life does not tend to further individual grief.  Constant
devout contemplation of the Supreme Sorrow which wrought the world's
salvation lessens the inclination to shed tears of self-pity.

The Prioress was startled and alarmed by the pathetic sobs of Sister
Seraphine.

This young nun had but lately been sent on to the Nunnery at Whytstone
from a convent at Tewkesbury in which she had served her novitiate, and
taken her final vows.  The Prioress now realised how little she knew of
the inner working of the mind of Sister Seraphine, and blamed herself
for having looked upon the outward appearance rather than upon the
heart, taken too much for granted, and relied too entirely upon the
reports of others.  Her sense of failure, toward the Community in
general, and toward Seraphine in particular, lent her a fresh stock of
patience.

She raised the weeping nun from the floor, put her arm around her, with
protective gesture, and led her before the Shrine of the Madonna.

"My child," she said, "there are things we are called upon to suffer
which we can best tell to our blessèd Lady, herself.  Try to unburden
your heart and find comfort . . .  Does your mind hark back to the
thought of the earthly love you resigned in order to give yourself
solely to the heavenly? . . .  Are you troubled by fears lest you
wronged the man you loved, when, leaving him, you became the bride of
Heaven?"

Sister Seraphine smiled--a scornful little smile.  "Nay," she said, "I
was weary of Wilfred.  But--there were others."

The voice of the Prioress grew even graver, and more sad.

"Is it then the Fact of marriage which you desired and regret?"

Sister Seraphine laughed--a hard, self-conscious, little laugh.

"Nay, I could not have brooked to be bound to any man.  But I liked to
be loved, and I liked to be First in the thought and heart of another."

The Prioress looked at the pretty, tear-stained face, at the softly
moulded form.  Then an idea came to her.  To voice it, lifted the veil
from the very Holy of Holies of her own heart's sufferings; but she
would not shrink from aught which could help this soul she was striving
to uplift.

With her eyes resting upon the Babe in the arms of the Virgin Mother,
she asked, gravely and low:

"Is it the ceaseless longing to have had a little child of your own to
hold in your arms, to gather to your breast, to put to sleep upon your
knees, which keeps your heart turning restlessly back to the world?"

Sister Seraphine gazed at the Prioress, in utter amazement.

"Nay, then, indeed!" she replied, impatiently.  "Always have I hated
children.  To escape from the vexations of motherhood were reason
enough for leaving the world."

Then the Prioress withdrew her protective arm, and looked sternly upon
Sister Seraphine.

"You are playing false to your vows," she said; "you are slighting your
vocation; yet no worthy or noble feeling draws your heart back to the
world.  You do but desire vain pomp and show; all those things which
minister to the enthronement of self.  Return to your cell and spend
three hours in prayer and penitence before the crucifix."

The Prioress lifted her hand and pointed to the figure of the Christ,
hanging upon the great rugged cross against the wall, facing the door.
The sublimity of a supreme adoration was in her voice, as she made her
last appeal.

"Surely," she said, "surely no love of self can live, in view of the
death and sacrifice of our blessèd Lord!  Kneel then before the
crucifix and learn----"

But the over-wrought mind of Sister Seraphine, suddenly convinced of
the futility of its hopeless rebellion, passed, in that moment,
altogether beyond control.

With a shout of wild laughter, she flung back her head, pointing with
outstretched finger at the crucifix.

"Death!  Death!  Death!" she shrieked, "helpless, hopeless, terrible!
I ask for life, I want to live; I am young, I am gay, I am beautiful.
And they bid--bid--bid me kneel--long hours--watching death."  Her
voice rose to a piercing scream.  "Ah, HA!  That will I NOT!  A dead
God cannot help me!  I want life, not death!"

Shrieking she leapt to her feet, flew across the room, beat upon the
sacred Form with her fists; tore at It with her fingers.

One instant of petrifying horror.  Then the Prioress was upon her.

Seizing her by both wrists she flung her to the floor, then pulled a
rope passing over a pulley in the wall, which started the great
alarm-bell, in the passage, clanging wildly.

At once there came a rush of flying feet; calls for the Sub-Prioress;
but she was already there.

When they flung wide the door, lo, the Prioress stood--with white face
and blazing eyes, her arms outstretched--between them and the crucifix.

Upon the floor, a crumpled heap, lay Sister Mary Seraphine.

The nuns, in a frightened crowd, filled the doorway, none daring to
speak, or to enter; till old Mary Antony, pushing past the
Sub-Prioress, kneeled down beside the Reverend Mother, and, lifting the
hem of her robe, kissed it and pressed it to her breast.

Slowly the Prioress let fall her arms.

"Enter," she said; and they flocked in.

"Sister Seraphine," said the Prioress, in awful tones, "has profaned
the crucifix, reviling our blessèd Lord, Who hangs thereon."

All the nuns, falling upon their knees, hid their faces in their hands.

There was a terrifying quality in the silence of the next moments.

Slowly the Prioress turned, prostrated herself at the foot of the
cross, and laid her forehead against the floor at its base.  Then the
nuns heard one deep, shuddering sob.

Not a head was lifted.  The only nun who peeped was Sister Mary
Seraphine, prone upon the floor.


After a while, the Prioress arose, pale but calm.

"Carry her to her cell," she said.

Two tall nuns to whom she made sign lifted Sister Seraphine, and bore
her out.

When the shuffling of their feet died away in the distance, the
Prioress gave further commands.

"All will now go to their cells and kneel in adoration before the
crucifix.  Doors are to be left standing wide.  The _Miserere_ is to be
chanted, until the ringing of the Refectory bell.  Mother Sub-Prioress
will remain behind."

The nuns dispersed, as quickly as they had gathered; seeking their
cells, like frightened birds fleeing before a gathering storm.

The tall nuns who had carried Sister Seraphine returned and waited
outside the Reverend Mother's door.

The Prioress stood alone; a tragic figure in her grief.

Mother Sub-Prioress drew near.  Her narrow face, peering from out her
veil, more than ever resembled a ferret.  Her small eyes gleamed with a
merciless light.

"Is mine the task, Reverend Mother?" she whispered.

The Prioress inclined her head.

Mother Sub-Prioress murmured a second question.

The Prioress turned and looked at the crucifix.

"Yes," she said, firmly.

Mother Sub-Prioress sidled nearer; then whispered her third question.

The Prioress did not answer.  She was looking at the carved, oaken
stool, overthrown.  She was wondering whether she could have acted with
better judgment, spoken more wisely.  Her heart was sore.  Such noble
natures ever blame themselves for the wrong-doing of the worthless.

Receiving no reply, Mother Sub-Prioress whispered a suggestion.

"No," said the Prioress.

Mother Sub-Prioress modified her suggestion.

The Prioress turned and looked at the tender figure of the Madonna,
brooding over the blessèd Babe.

"No," said the Prioress.

Mother Sub-Prioress frowned, and made a further modification; but in
tones which suggested finality.

The Prioress inclined her head.

The Sub-Prioress, bowing low, lifted the hem of the Reverend Mother's
veil, and kissed it; then passed from the room.


The Prioress moved to the window.

The sunset was over.  The evening star shone, like a newly-lighted
lamp, in a pale purple sky.  The fleet-winged swallows had gone to rest.

Bats flitted past the casement, like homeless souls who know not where
to go.

Low chanting began in the cells; the nuns, with open doors, singing
_Miserere_.

But, as she looked at the evening star, the Prioress heard again, with
startling distinctness, the final profanity of poor Sister Seraphine:
"I want life--not death!"


Along the corridor passed a short procession, on its way to the cell of
Mary Seraphine.

First went a nun, carrying a lighted taper.

Next, the two tall nuns who had borne Mary Seraphine to her cell.

Behind them, Mother Sub-Prioress, holding something beneath her
scapulary which gave to her more of a presence than she usually
possessed.

Solemn and official,--nay, almost sacrificial--was their measured
shuffle, as they moved along the passage, and entered the cell of Mary
Seraphine.


The Prioress closed her door, and, kneeling before the crucifix,
implored forgiveness for the sacrilege which, all unwittingly, she had
provoked.

The nuns, in their separate cells, chanted the _Miserere_.
But--suddenly--with one accord, their voices fell silent; then hastened
on, in uncertain, agitated rhythm.


Old Mary Antony below, playing her favourite game, also paused, and
pricked up her ears: then filliped the wizen pea, which stood for
Mother Sub-Prioress, into the darkest corner, and hurried off to brew a
soothing balsam.

So, when the Refectory bell had summoned all to the evening meal, the
old lay-sister crept to the cell of Mary Seraphine, carrying broth and
comfort.

But Sister Seraphine was better content than she had been for many
weeks.

At last she had become the centre of attention; and, although, during
the visit of Mother Sub-Prioress to her cell, this had been a
peculiarly painful position to occupy, yet to the morbid mind of Mary
Seraphine, the position seemed worth the discomfort.

Therefore, her mind now purged of its discontent, she cheerfully supped
old Antony's broth, and applied the soothing balsam; yet planning the
while, to gain favour with the Prioress, by repeating to her, at the
first convenient opportunity, the naughty remarks concerning Mother
Sub-Prioress, now being made for her diversion, by the kind old woman
who had risked reproof, in order to bring to her, in her disgrace, both
food and consolation.




CHAPTER VI

THE KNIGHT OF THE BLOODY VEST

"Nay, I have naught for thee this morning," said Mary Antony to the
robin; "naught, that is, save spritely conversation.  I can tell thee a
tale or two; I can give thee sage advice; but, in my wallet, little
Master Mendicant, I have but my bag of peas."

The old lay-sister sat resting in the garden.  She had had a busy hour,
yet complicated in its busy-ness, for, starting out to do weeding, she
had presently fancied herself intent upon making a posy, and now, sat
upon the stone seat beneath the beech tree, holding a large nosegay
made up of many kinds of flowering weeds, arranged with much care, and
bound round with convolvulus tendrils.

Keen and uncommon shrewd though old Antony certainly was in many ways,
her great age occasionally betrayed itself by childish vagaries.  Her
mind would start off along the lines of a false premise, landing her
eventually in a dream-like conclusion.  As now, when waking from a
moment's nodding in the welcome shade, she wondered why her old back
seemed well-nigh broken, and marvelled to find herself holding a big
posy of dandelions, groundsel, plantain, and bindweed.

On the other end of the seat, stood the robin.  The beech was just near
enough to the cloisters, the pieman's tree, and his own particular yew
hedge, to come within his little kingdom.

Having mentioned her bag of peas, Mary Antony experienced an
irresistible desire to view them and, moreover, to display them before
the bright eyes of the robin.

She laid the queer nosegay down upon the grass at her feet, turned
sidewise on the stone slab, and drew the bag from her wallet.

"Now, Master Pieman!" she said.  "At thine own risk thou doest it; but
with thine own bright eyes thou shalt see the holy Ladies; the Unnamed,
all like peas in a pod, as the Lord knows they do look, when they walk
to and fro; but first, if so be that I can find them, the Few which I
distinguish from among the rest."

Presently, after much peering into the bag, the fine white pea, the
wizened pea, and the pale and speckled pea, lay in line upon the stone.

"This," explained Mary Antony, pointing, with knobby forefinger, to the
first, "is the Reverend Mother, Herself--large, and pure, and
noble. . . .  Nay, hop not too close, Sir Redbreast!  When we enter her
chamber we kneel at the threshold, till she bids us draw nearer.  True,
_we_ are merely soberly-clad, holy women, whereas _thou_ art a gay,
gaudy man; bold-eyed, and, doubtless, steeped in sin.  But even thou
must keep thy distance, in presence of this most Reverend Pea of great
price.

"This," indicating the shrivelled pea, "is Mother Sub-Prioress, who
would love to have the whipping of thee, thou naughty little rascal!

"This is Sister Mary Rebecca who daily grows more crooked, both in mind
and body; yet who ever sweetly smileth.

"Now will I show thee, if so be that I can find her, Sister Teresa, a
kindly soul and gracious, but with a sniff which may be heard in the
kitchens when that holy Lady taketh her turn at the Refectory reading.
And when, the reading over, having sniffed every other minute, she at
length, feels free to blow, beshrew me, Master Redbreast, one might
think our old dun cow had just been parted from a newly-born calf.
Yea, a kind, gracious soul; but noisy about the nose, and forgetful of
the ears of other people, her own necessity seeming excuse enough for
veritable trumpet blasts."

Mary Antony, half turning as she talked, peered into the open bag in
search of Sister Teresa.

Then, quick as thought, the unexpected happened.

Three rapid hops, a jerky bend of the red breast, a flash of wings----

The robin had flown off with the white pea!  The shrivelled and the
speckled alone remained upon the seat.

Uttering a cry of horror and dismay, the old lay-sister fell upon her
knees, lifting despairing hands to trees and sky.


Down by the lower wall, in earnest meditation, the Prioress moved back
and forth, on the Cypress Walk.

Mary Antony's shriek of dismay, faint but unmistakable, reached her
ears.  Turning, she passed noiselessly up the green sward, on the
further side of the yew hedge; but paused, in surprise, as she drew
level with the beech; for the old lay-sister's voice penetrated the
hedge, and the first words she overheard seemed to the Prioress wholly
incomprehensible.

"Ah, thou Knight of the Bloody Vest!" moaned Mary Antony.  "Heaven send
thy wicked perfidy may fall on thine own pate!  Intruding thyself into
our most private places; begging food, which could not be refused;
wheedling old Mary Antony into letting thee have a peep at the holy
Ladies--thou bold, bad man!--and then carrying off the Reverend Mother,
Herself!  Ha!  Hadst thou but caught away Mother Sub-Prioress, she
would have reformed thy home, whipped thy children, and mended thine
own vile manners, thou graceless churl!  Or hadst thou taken Sister
Mary Rebecca, _she_ would have brought the place about thine ears,
telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that
Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she.  But, nay, forsooth!
Neither of these will do!  Thou must needs snatch away the Reverend
Mother, Herself!  Oh, sacrilegious fiend!  Stand not there mocking me!
Where is the Reverend Mother?"

"Why, here am I, dear Antony," said the Prioress, in soothing tones,
coming quickly from behind the hedge.

One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone.
Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face.  She knelt upon the
grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat,
peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag.  Above her on a bough, a
robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.

To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have
taken leave of her senses.

Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself
forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother's feet, in an
abandonment of penitence and grief.

"Nay, rise, dear Antony," said the Prioress, firmly.  "Rise!  I command
it.  The day is warm.  Thou hast been dreaming.  No bold, bad man has
forced his way within these walls.  No 'Knight of the Bloody Vest' is
here.  Rise up and look.  We are alone."

But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing
to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs: "The bold, bad man is
there!"

Looking up, the Prioress met the bright eye of the robin, peeping down.

Why, surely?  Yes!  There was the "Bloody Vest."

The Prioress smiled.  She began to understand.

The robin burst into a stream of triumphant song.  At which, old Mary
Antony, still kneeling, shook her uplifted fist.

The Prioress raised and drew her to the seat.

"Now sit thee here beside me," she said, "and make full confession.
Ease thine old heart by telling me the entire tale.  Then I will pass
sentence on the robin if, true to his name, he turns out to be a thief."

So there, in the Convent garden, while the robin sang overhead, the
Prioress listened to the quaint recital; the dread of making mistake in
the daily counting; the elaborate plan of dropping peas; the manner in
which the peas became identified with the personalities of the White
Ladies; the games in the cell; the taming of the robin; the habit of
sharing with the little bird, interests which might not be shared with
others, which had resulted that morning in the display of the peas, and
this undreamed of disaster--the abduction of the Reverend Mother.

The Prioress listened with outward gravity, striving to conceal all
signs of the inward mirth which seized and shook her.  But more than
once she had to turn her face from the peering eyes of Mary Antony,
striving anxiously to gather whether her chronicle of sins was placing
her outside the pale of possible forgiveness.

The Prioress did not hasten the recital.  She knew the importance, to
the mind with which she dealt, of even the most trivial detail.  To be
checked or hurried, would leave Mary Antony with the sense of an
incomplete confession.

Therefore, with infinite patience the Prioress listened, seated in the
sunlit garden, undisturbed, save for the silent passing, once or twice,
of a veiled figure through the cloisters, who, seeing the Reverend
Mother seated beneath the beech, did reverence and hastened on, looking
not again.

When the garrulous old voice at last fell silent, the Prioress, with
kind hand, covered the restless fingers--clasping and unclasping in
anxious contortions--and firmly held them in folded stillness.

Her first words were of a thing as yet unmentioned.

"Dear Antony," she said, "is that thy posy lying at our feet?"

"Ah, Reverend Mother," sighed the old lay-sister, "in this did I again
do wrong meaning to do right.  Sister Mary Augustine, coming into the
kitchens with leave, from Mother Sub-Prioress, to make the pasties, and
desiring to be free to make them heavy--unhampered by my advice which,
of a surety, would have helped them to lightness--bade me go out and
weed the garden.

"Weeding, I bethought me how much liefer I would be gathering a posy of
choicest flowers for our sweet Lady's shrine; and, thus thinking, I
began to do, not according to Sister Mary Augustine's hard task, but
according to mine own heart's promptings.  Yet, when the posy was
finished, alack-a-day! it was a posy of weeds!"

Tears filled the eyes of the Prioress; at first she could not trust her
voice to make reply.

Then, stooping she picked up the nosegay.

"Our Lady shall have it," she said.  "I will place it before her
shrine, in mine own cell.  She will understand--knowing how often,
though the hands perforce do weeding, yet, all the time, the heart is
gathering choicest flowers.

"Aye, and sometimes when we bring to God offerings of fairest flowers,
He sees but worthless weeds.  And, when we mourn, because we have but
weeds to offer, He sees them fragrant blossoms.  Whatever, to the eye
of man, the hand may hold, God sees therein the bouquet of the heart's
intention."

The Prioress paused, a look of great gladness on her face; then, as she
saw the old lay-sister still eyeing her posy with dissatisfaction:
"And, after all, dear Antony," she said, "who shall decide which
flowers shall be dubbed 'weeds'?  No plant of His creation, however
humble, was called a 'weed' by the Creator.  When, for man's sin, He
cursed the ground, He said: 'Thorns also and thistles shall it cause to
bud.'  Well?  Sharpest thorns are found around the rose; the thistle is
the royal bloom of Scotland; and, if our old white ass could speak her
mind, doubtless she would call it King of Flowers.

"Nowhere in Holy Books, is any plant named a 'weed.'  It is left to man
to proclaim that the flowers he wants not, are weeds.

"Look at each one of these.  Could you or I, labouring for years, with
all our skill, make anything so perfect as the meanest of these weeds?

"Nay; they are weeds, because they grow, there where they should not
be.  The gorgeous scarlet poppy is a weed amid the corn.  If roses
overgrew the wheat, we should dub them weeds, and root them out.

"And some of us have had, perforce, so to deal with the roses in our
lives; those sweet and fragrant things which overgrew our offering of
the wheat of service, our sacrifice of praise and prayer.

"Perhaps, when our weeds are all torn out, and cast in a tangled heap
before His Feet, our Lord beholds in them a garland of choice blossoms.
The crown of thorns on earth, may prove, in Paradise, a diadem of
flowers."

The Prioress laid the posy on the seat beside her.

"Now, Antony, about thy games with peas.  There is no wrong in keeping
count with peas of those who daily walk to and from Vespers; though, I
admit, it seems to me, it were easier to count one, two, three, with
folded hands, than to let fall the peas from one hand to the other,
beneath thy scapulary.  Howbeit, a method which would be but a pitfall
to one, may prove a prop to another.  So I give thee leave to continue
to count with thy peas.  Also the games in thy cell are harmless, and
lead me to think, as already I have sometimes thought, that games with
balls or rings, something in which eye guides the hand, and mind the
eye, might be helpful for all, on summer evenings.

"But I cannot have thee take upon thyself to decide the future state of
the White Ladies.  Who art thou, to send me to Paradise with a fillip
of thine old finger-nail, yet to keep our excellent Sub-Prioress in
Purgatory?  Shame upon thee, Mary Antony!"  But the sternness of the
Reverend Mother's tone was belied by the merriment in her grey eyes.

"So no more of that, my Antony; though, truth to tell, thy story gives
me relief, answering a question I was meaning to put to thee.  I heard,
not an hour ago, that Sister Antony had boasted that with a turn of her
thumb and finger she could, any night, send Mother Sub-Prioress to
Purgatory."

"Who said that of me?" stuttered Mary Antony.  "Who said it, Reverend
Mother?"

"A little bird," murmured the Prioress.  "A little bird, dear Antony;
but not thy pretty robin.  Also, the boast was taken to mean poison in
the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress.  Hast thou ever put harmful things in
the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress?"

Mary Antony slipped to her knees.

"Only beans, Reverend Mother, castor beans; and, when her temper was
vilest, purging herbs.  Nothing more, I swear it!  Old Antony knows
naught of poisons; only of mixing balsams--ah, ha!--and soothing
ointments!  Our blessèd Lady knows the tale is false."

Hastily the Prioress lifted the nosegay and buried her face in bindweed
and dandelions.

"I believe thee," she said, in a voice not over steady.  "Rise from thy
knees.  But, remember, I forbid thee to put aught into Mother
Sub-Prioress's broth, save things that soothe and comfort.   Give me
thy word for this, Antony."

The old woman humbly lifted the hem of the Prioress's robe, and pressed
it to her lips.

"I promise, Reverend Mother," she said, "and I do repent me of my sin."

"Sit beside me," commanded the Prioress.  "I have more to say to
thee. . . .  Think not hard thoughts of the Sub-Prioress.  She is
stern, and extreme to mark what is done amiss, but this she conceives
to be her duty.  She is a most pious Lady.  Her zeal is but a sign of
her piety."

Mary Antony's keen eyes, meeting those of the Prioress, twinkled.

Once again the Prioress took refuge in the posy.  She was beginning to
have had enough of the scent of dandelions.

"Mother Sub-Prioress is sick," she said.  "The cold struck her last
evening, after sunset, in the orchard.  I have bidden her to keep her
bed awhile.  We must tend her kindly, Antony, and help her back to
health again.

"Sister Mary Rebecca is also sick, with pains in her bones and slight
fever.  She too keeps her bed to-day.  Strive to feel kindly toward
her, Antony.  I know she oft thinks evil where none was meant, telling
tales of wrong which are mostly of her own imagining.  But, in so
doing, she harms herself more than she can harm others.

"By stirring up the mud in a dark pool, you dim the reflection of the
star which, before, shone bright within it.  But you do not dim the
star, shining on high.

"So is it with the slanderous thoughts of evil minds.  They stir up
their own murkiness; but they fail to dim the stars.

"We must bear with Sister Mary Rebecca."

"Go not nigh them, Reverend Mother," begged old Antony.  "I will tend
them with due care and patience.  These pains in bones, and general
shiverings, are given quickly from one to another.  I pray you, go not
near.  Remember--_you_ were taken--alas! alas!--and _they_ were left!"

At this the Prioress laughed, gaily.

"But I was not taken decently, with pains in my bones and a-bed, dear
Antony.  I was carried off by a bold, bad man--thy Knight of the Bloody
Vest."

"Oh, pray!" cried the old lay-sister.  "I fear me it is an omen.  The
angel Gabriel, Reverend Mother, sent to bear you from earth to heaven.
'The one shall be taken, and the other left.'  Ah, if he had but flown
off with Mother Sub-Prioress!"

The Prioress laughed again.  "Dear Antony, thy little bird took the
first pea he saw.  Had there but been a crumb, or a morsel of cheese,
he would have left thee thy white pea. . .  Hark how he sings his
little song of praise! . . .  Is it not wonderful to call to mind how,
centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks,
the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men
were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when
churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God
undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes
sang, 'Do it now--Do it now,' as they sought food for their young, the
blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing.  Aye,
and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily
plumaged birds, here--in these Isles--the robin redbreast sang, and all
our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young;
living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how
to do.

"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this
our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved
cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will
stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in
this very garden--if it be a garden still--the robin will build his
nest, and carol his happy song.

"Mark you this, dear Mary Antony: all things made by man hold within
them the elements of change and of decay.  But nature is at one with
God, and therefore immutable.  Earthly kingdoms may rise and wane;
mighty cities may spring up, then fall into ruin.  Nations may conquer
and, in their turn, be conquered.  Man may slay man and, in his turn,
be slain.  But, through it all, the mountains stand, the rivers flow,
the forests wave, and the redbreast builds his nest in the hawthorn,
and warbles a love-song to his mate."

The Prioress rose and stretched wide her arms to the sunlit garden, to
the bough where the robin sang.

"Oh, to be one with God and with Nature!" she cried.  "Oh, to know the
essential mysteries of Life and Light and Love!  This is Life Eternal!"

She had forgotten the old lay-sister; aye, for the moment she had
forgotten the Convent and the cloister, the mile-long walk in darkness,
the chant of the unseen monks.  She trod again the springy heather of
her youth; she heard the rush of the mountain stream; the sigh of the
great forest; the rustle of the sunlit glades, alive with, life.  These
all were in the robin's song.  Then----

Within the Convent, the Refectory bell clanged loudly.

The Prioress let fall her arms.

She picked up the nosegay of weeds.

"Come, Antony," she said, "let us go and discover whether Sister Mary
Augustine hath contrived to make the pasties light and savoury, even
without the aid of the advice she might have had from thee."

Old Mary Antony, gleeful and marvelling, followed the stately figure of
the Prioress.  Never was shriven soul more blissfully at peace.  She
had kept back nothing; yet the Reverend Mother had imposed no
punishment, had merely asked a promise which, in the fulness of her
gratitude, Mary Antony had found it easy to give.

Truly the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress should, for the future, contain
naught but what was grateful and soothing.

But, as she entered the Refectory behind the Reverend Mother and saw
all the waiting nuns arise, old Mary Antony laid her finger to her nose.

"That 'little bird' shall have the castor beans," she said, "That
'little bird' shall have them.  Not my pretty robin, but the other!"

And, sad to say, poor Sister Seraphine was sorely griped that night,
and suffered many pangs.




CHAPTER VII

THE MADONNA IN THE CLOISTER

The Prioress knelt, in prayer and meditation, before the figure of the
Virgin Mother holding upon her knees the holy Babe.

Moonlight flooded the cell with a pure radiance.

Mary Antony's posy of weeds, offered, according to promise, at the
Virgin's shrine, took on, in that silver splendour, the semblance of
lilies and roses.

The Prioress knelt long, with clasped hands and bowed head, as white
and as motionless as the marble before her.  But at length she lifted
her face, and broke into low pleading.

"Mother of God," she said, "help this poor aching heart; still the wild
hunger at my breast.  Make me content to be at one with the Divine, and
to let Nature go. . . .  Thou knowest it is not the _man_ I want.  In
all the long years since he played traitor to his troth to me, I have
not wanted the man.  The woman he wed may have him, unbegrudged by me.
I do not envy her the encircling of his arms, though time was when I
felt them strong and tender.  I do not want the man, but--O, sweet
Mother of God--I want the man's little child!  I envy her the
motherhood which, but for her, would have been mine. . . .  I want the
soft dark head against my breast. . . .  I want sweet baby lips drawing
fresh life from mine. . . .  I want the little feet, resting together
in my hand. . . .  All Nature sings of life, and the power to bestow
life.  Yet mine arms are empty, and my strength does but carry mine own
self to and fro. . . .  Oh, give me grace to turn my thoughts from Life
to Sacrifice."

The Prioress rose, crossed the floor, and knelt long in prayer and
contemplation before the crucifix.

The moonlight fell upon the dying face of the suffering Saviour, upon
the crown of thorns, the helpless arms out-stretched, the bleeding feet.

O, Infinite Redeemer!  O, mighty Sacrifice!  O, Love of God, made
manifest!


The Prioress knelt long in adoring contemplation.  At intervals she
prostrated herself, pressing her forehead against the base of the cross.


At length she rose and moved toward the inner room, where stood her
couch.

But even as she reached the threshold she turned quickly back, and
kneeling before the Virgin and Child clasped the little marble foot of
the Babe, covered it with kisses, and pressed it to her breast.

Then, lifting despairing eyes to the tender face of the Madonna: "O,
Mother of God," she cried, "grant unto me to love the piercèd feet of
thy dear Son crucified, more than I love the little, baby feet of the
Infant Jesus on thy knees."

A great calm fell upon her after this final prayer.  It seemed, of a
sudden, more efficacious than all the long hours of vigil.  She felt
persuaded that it would be granted.

She rose to her feet, almost too much dazed and too weary to cross to
the inner cell.

A breath of exquisite fragrance filled the air.

At the feet of the Madonna stood a wondrous bouquet of lilies of the
valley and white roses.

Pale but radiant, the Prioress passed into her sleeping-chamber.  The
loving heart of old Mary Antony had been full of lilies and roses.  It
was not her fault that her old hands had been filled with weeds.
Divine Love, understanding, had wrought this gracious miracle.

As the Prioress stretched herself upon her couch, she murmured softly:
"The Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

"And, after all, this miracle of the Divine perception doth take place
daily.

"Alas, when our vaunted roses and lilies appear, in His sight, as mere
worthless weeds.

"The Lord looketh on the heart."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

When the Prioress awoke, the sunlight filled her chamber.

She hastened to the archway between the cells, and looked.

The dandelions seemed more gaily golden, in the morning light.  The
bindweed had faded.

The Prioress was disappointed.  She had counted upon sending early for
old Mary Antony.  She had pictured her bewildered joy.  Yet now the
nosegay was as before.

Morning light is ever a test for transformations.  Things are apt to
look again as they were.

But a fragrance of roses and lilies still lingered in the chamber.

The blessèd Virgin smiled upon the Babe.

And there was peace in the heart of the Prioress.  Her long vigil, her
hours of prayer, had won for her the sense of a calm certainty of
coming victory.

Strong in that certainty, she bent, and gently kissed the little feet
of the holy Babe.


Then, as was her wont, she sounded the bell which called the entire
community to arise, and to begin a new day.




CHAPTER VIII

ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM

In the afternoon of that day, Mary Antony awaited, in the cloisters,
the return of the White Ladies from Vespers.  Twenty only, had gone;
and, fearful lest she should make mistake with the unusual number, the
old lay-sister spent the time of waiting in counting the twenty peas
afresh, passing them back and forth from one hand to the other.

Mother Sub-Prioress was still unable to leave her bed.

Sister Mary Augustine stayed to tend her.

Sister Teresa was in less pain, but fevered still, and strangely weak.
The Reverend Mother forbade her to rise.

Shortly before the bell rang calling the nuns to form procession in the
cloisters, Sister Seraphine declared herself unable for the walk, and
begged to be allowed to remain behind.  The Prioress found herself
misdoubting this sudden indisposition of Sister Seraphine who, though
flushed and excited, shewed none of the usual signs of sickness.

Not wishing, however, to risk having a third patient upon her hands,
the Reverend Mother gave leave for her to stay, but also elected to
remain behind, herself; letting Sister Mary Rebecca, who had recovered
from her indisposition, lead the procession.

Thus the Reverend Mother contrived to keep Sister Seraphine with her
during the absence of the other nuns, giving her translations from the
Sacramentaries to copy upon strips of vellum, until shortly before the
hour when the White Ladies would return from Vespers, when she sent her
to her cell for the time of prayer and meditation.

Left alone, the Prioress examined the copies, fairly legible, but sadly
unlike her own beautiful work.  She sighed and, putting them away, rose
and paced the room, questioning how best to deal with the pretty but
wayward young nun.

Two definite causes led the Prioress to mistrust Sister Seraphine: one,
that she had called upon "Wilfred" to come and save her, and had
admitted having expected him to appear and carry her off before she
made her final profession; the other, that she had tried to start an
evil report concerning the old lay-sister, Mary Antony.  The Prioress
pondered what means to take in order to bring Sister Seraphine to a
better mind.

As the Prioress walked to and fro, unconsciously missing the daily
exercise of the passage to the Cathedral, she noted a sudden darkening
of her chamber.  Going to the window, she saw the sky grown black with
thunder clouds.  So quickly the storm gathered, that the bright summer
world without seemed suddenly hung over with a deep purple pall.

Birds screamed and darted by, on hurried wing; then, reaching home,
fell silent.  All nature seemed to hold its breath, awaiting the first
flash, and the first roll of thunder.

Still standing at her window, the Prioress questioned whether the nuns
were returned, and safely in their cells.  While underground they would
know nothing of it; but they loved not passing along the cloisters in a
storm.

The Prioress wondered why she had not heard the bell announcing their
return, and calling to the hour of prayer and silence.  Also why Mary
Antony had not brought in the key and her report.

Thinking to inquire into this, she turned from the window, just as a
darting snake of fire cleft the sky.  A crash of thunder followed; and,
at that moment, the door of the chamber bursting open, old Mary Antony,
breathless, stumbled in, forgetting to knock, omitting to kneel, not
waiting leave to speak, both hands outstretched, one tightly clenched,
the other holding the great key: "Oh, Reverend Mother!" she gasped.
Then the stern displeasure on that loved face silenced her.  She
dropped upon her knees, ashen and trembling.

Now the Prioress held personal fear in high scorn; and if, after ninety
years' experience of lightning and thunder, Mary Antony was not better
proof against their terrors, the Prioress felt scant patience with her.
She spoke sternly.

"How now, Mary Antony!  Why this unseemly haste?  Why this rush into my
presence; no knock; no pause until I bid thee enter?  Is the
storm-fiend at thy heels?  Now shame upon thee!"

For only answer, Mary Antony opened her clenched hand: whereupon twenty
peas fell pattering to the floor, chasing one another across the
Reverend Mother's cell.

The Prioress frowned, growing suddenly weary of these games with peas.

"Have the Ladies returned?" she asked.

Mary Antony grovelled nearer, let fall the key, and seized the robe of
the Prioress with both hands, not to carry it to her lips, but to cling
to it as if for protection.

With the clang of the key on the flags, a twisted blade of fire rent
the sky.

As the roar which followed rolled away, echoed and re-echoed by distant
hills, the old lay-sister lifted her face.

Her lips moved, her gums rattled; the terror in her eyes pleaded for
help.

This was the moment when it dawned on the Prioress that there was more
here than fear of a storm.

Stooping she laid her hands firmly, yet with kindness in their
strength, on the shaking shoulders.

"What is it, dear Antony?" she said.

"Twenty White Ladies went," whispered the old lay-sister.  "I counted
them.  Twenty White Ladies went; but----"

"Well?"

"_Twenty-one_ returned," chattered Mary Antony, and hid her face in the
Reverend Mother's robe.

Two flashes, with their accompanying peals of thunder passed, before
the Prioress moved or spoke.  Then raising Mary Antony she placed her
in a chair, disengaged her robe from the shaking hands, passed out into
the cell passage, and herself sounded the call to silence and prayer.

Returning to her cell she shut the door, poured out a cordial and put
it to the trembling lips of Mary Antony.  Then taking a seat just
opposite, she looked with calm eyes at the lay-sister.

"What means this story?" said the Prioress.

"Reverend Mother, twenty holy Ladies went----"

"I know.  And twenty returned."

"Aye," said the old woman more firmly, nettled out of her
speechlessness; "twenty returned; and twenty peas I dropped from hand
to hand.  Then--when no pea remained--yet another White Lady glided by;
and with her went an icy wind, and around her came the blackness of the
storm.

"Down the steps I fled, locked the door, and took the key.  How I
mounted again, I know not.  As I drew level with the cloisters, I saw
that twenty-first White Lady, for whom--Saint Peter knows--I held no
pea, passing from the cloisters into the cell passage.  As I hastened
on, fain to see whither she went, a blinding flash, like an evil
twisting snake, shot betwixt her and me.  When I could see again, she
was gone.  I fled to the Reverend Mother, and ran in on the roar of the
thunder."

"Saw you her face, Mary Antony?"

"Nay, Reverend Mother.  But, of late, the holy Ladies mostly walk by
with their faces shrouded."

"I know.  Now, see here, dear Antony.  Two peas dropped together, the
while you counted one."

"Nay, Reverend Mother.  Twenty peas dropped one by one; also I counted
twenty White Ladies.  And, after I had counted twenty, yet another
passed."

"But how could that be?" objected the Prioress.  "If twenty went, but
twenty could return.  Who should be the twenty-first?"

Then old Mary Antony leaned forward, crossing herself.

"Sister Agatha," she whispered, tremulously.  "Poor Sister Agatha
returned to us again."

But, even as she said it, swift came a name to the mind of the
Prioress, answering her own question, and filling her with
consternation and a great anger.  "Wilfred!  Wilfred, are you come to
save me?" foolish little Seraphine had said.  Was such sacrilege
possible?  Could one from the outside world have dared to intrude into
their holy Sanctuary?

Yet old Antony's tale carried conviction.  Her abject fear was now
explained.

That the Dead should come again, and walk and move among the haunts of
men, seeking out the surroundings they have loved and left, seems
always to hold terror for the untutored mind, which knows not that the
Dead are more alive than the living; and that there is no death, saving
the death of sin.

But to the Reverend Mother, guarding her flock from sin or shame, a
visitor from the Unseen World held less of horror than a possible
intruder from the Seen.

A rapid glance as she sounded the bell, had shown her that the passage
was empty.

Which cell now sheltered two, where there should be but one?

The Prioress walked across to a recess near the south window, touched a
spring, and slid back a portion of the oak panelling.  Passing her hand
into a secret hiding place in the wall, she drew forth a beautifully
fashioned dagger, with carved ivory handle, crossed metal thumb-guard,
blade of bevelled steel, polished and narrowing to a sharp needle
point.  She tested the point, then slipped the weapon into her belt,
beneath her scapulary.  As she closed the panel, and turned back into
the chamber, a light of high resolve was in her eyes.  Her whole
bearing betokened so fine a fearlessness, such noble fixity of purpose
that, looking on her, Mary Antony felt her own fears vanishing.

"Now listen, dear Antony," said the Prioress, holding the old woman
with her look.  "I must make sure that this twenty-first White Lady of
thine is but a trick played on thee by thy peas.  Should she be
anywhere in the Convent I shall most certainly have speech with her.

"Meanwhile, go thou to thy kitchens, and give thy mind to the preparing
of the evening meal.  But ring not the Refectory bell until I bid thee.
Nay, I myself will sound it this evening.  It may suit me to keep the
nuns somewhat longer at their devotions.

"Should I sound the alarm bell, let all thy helpers run up here; but go
thou to the cell of Mother Sub-Prioress and persuade her not to rise.
If needful say that it is my command that she keep her bed. . . .
Great heavens!  What a crash!  May our Lady defend us!  The lightning
inclines to strike.  I shall pass to each cell and make sure that none
are too greatly alarmed."

"Now, haste thee, Antony; and not a word concerning thy fears must pass
thy lips to any; no mention of a twenty-first White Lady nor"--the
Prioress crossed herself--"of Sister Agatha, to whom may our Lord grant
everlasting rest."

Mary Antony, kneeling, kissed the hem of the Prioress's robe.  Then,
rising, she said--with unwonted solemnity and restraint: "The Lord
defend you, Reverend Mother, from foes, seen and unseen," and, followed
by another blinding flash of lightning, she left the cell.




CHAPTER IX

THE PRIORESS SHUTS THE DOOR

The Prioress waited until the old lay-sister's shuffling footsteps died
away.

Then she passed out into the long, stone passage, leaving her own door
open wide.

Into each cell the Prioress went.

In each she found a kneeling nun, absorbed in her devotions.  In no
cell were there two white figures.  So simple were the fittings of
these cells, that no place of concealment was possible.  One look, from
the doorway, sufficed.

Outside the cell of Sister Seraphine the Prioress paused, hearing words
within; then entered swiftly.  But Sister Seraphine was alone, reciting
aloud, for love of hearing her own voice.

The Prioress now moved toward the heavy door in the archway leading
into the cloisters.  It opened inwards, and had been left standing
wide, by Mary Antony.  Indeed, in summer it stood open day and night,
for coolness.

As the Prioress walked along the dimly lighted passage, she could see,
through the open door, sheets of rain driving through the cloisters.
The storm-clouds had burst, at last, and were descending in floods.

The Prioress stood in the shelter of the doorway, looking out into the
cloisters.  The only places she could not view, were the entrance to
the subterranean way, and the flight of steps leading thereto.  She
would have wished to examine these; but it seemed scarcely worth
passing into the driving rain, now sweeping through the cloister
arches.  After all, whatever possible danger lurked down those steps,
the safety of the Convent would be assured if she closed this door,
between the passage and the cloisters, and locked it.

Stepping back into the passage, she seized the heavy door and swung it
to, noting as she did so, how far too heavy it was for the feeble arms
of old Mary Antony, and deciding for the future to allot the task of
closing it to a young lay-sister, leaving to Mary Antony merely the
responsibility of turning the key in the lock.

This the Prioress was herself proceeding to do, when something impelled
her to turn her eyes to the angle of wall laid bare by the closing of
the door.

In that dark corner, motionless, with shrouded face, stood a tall
figure, garbed in the dress of the nuns of the Order of the White
Ladies of Worcester.


Perhaps the habit of silence is never of greater value than in moments
of sudden shock and horror.

One cry from the Prioress would have meant the instant opening of many
doors, and the arrival, on flying feet, of a score of frightened nuns.

Instead of screaming, the Prioress stood silent and perfectly still;
while every pulse in her body ceased beating, during one moment of
uncontrollable, cold horror.  Then, with a leap, her heart went on;
pounding so loudly, that she could hear it in the silence.  Yet she
kept command of every impulse which drove to sound or motion.

Before long her pulses quieted; her heart, beating steadily, was once
again the well-managed steed upon which her high courage could ride to
victory.

And, all the while, her eyes never left the white figure; knowing it
knew itself discovered and observed.

Her hand was still upon the key.

She turned it, and withdrew it from the lock.

A deafening crash of thunder shook the walls.  A swirl of wind and rain
beat on the door.

When the last echo of the thunder had died away, the Prioress spoke;
and that calm voice, sounding amid the storm, fell on the only ears
that heard it, like the Voice of Power on Galilee, which bid the
tempest cease, and the wild waves be still.


"Who art thou, and what doest thou here?"

The figure answered not.

"Art thou a ghostly visitor come back amongst us, from the Realm of the
Unseen?"

The figure made no sign.  "Art thou then flesh and blood, and mortal as
ourselves?"

Slowly the figure bowed its head.

"Now I adjure thee by our blessèd Lady to tell me truly.  Art thou, in
very deed a holy nun, a member of our sacred Order?  Answer me, yea or
nay?"

The figure shook its head.

The Prioress advanced a step, passed the key into her left hand and,
slipping her right beneath her scapulary, took firm grip of the dagger
at her girdle.

"Then, masquerader in our sacred dress," she said, "to me you have to
answer for double sacrilege: the wearing of these robes, and your
presence here, unbidden.  I warn you that your life has never hung by
frailer thread than now it hangs.  Your only hope of safety lies in
doing as I bid you.  Pass before me along this passage until you reach
a chamber on the right, of which the door stands open.  Enter, and
place yourself against the wall on the side farthest from the door.
There I will speak with you."

With the shuffling steps of a woman, and the bent shoulders of the very
old, the figure moved slowly forward, stepped upon the front of the
white robe, stumbled, but recovered.

The Prioress watching, laughed--a short scornful laugh, holding more of
anger than of merriment.

With an abrupt movement the figure straightened, stood at its full
height, and strode forward.  The Prioress marked the squaring of the
broad shoulders; the height, greater than her own, though she was more
than common tall; the stride, beneath the folds of the long robe; and
she knit her level brows, for well she knew with whom she had to deal.
She was called to face a desperate danger.  Single-handed, she had to
meet a subtle foe.  She asked no help from others, but she took no
needless risks.

As she passed the cell of Mary Seraphine, using her master-key, she
locked that lady in!




CHAPTER X

"I KNOW YOU FOR A MAN"

Entering her cell, the Prioress saw at once that her orders had been
obeyed.

The hooded figure stood on the far side of the chamber, leaning broad
shoulders against the wall.  Under the cape, the arms were folded; she
could see that the feet were crossed beneath the robe.  The dress was
indeed the dress of a White Lady, but the form within it was so
obviously that of a man--a big man, at bay, and inclined to be
defiant--that, despite the strange situation, despite her anger, and
her fears, the contrast between the holy habit and its hidden wearer,
forced from the Prioress an unwilling smile.

Closing the door, she drew forward a chair of dark Spanish wood, the
gift of the Lord Bishop; a chair which well betokened the dignity of
her high office.

Seating herself, she laid her left hand lightly upon the mane of one of
the carved lions which formed, on either side, the arms of the chair;
but her right hand still gripped unseen the ivory hilt; while leaning
slightly forward, with feet firmly planted, she was ready at any moment
to spring erect.

"I know you for a man," she said.

The thunder rumbled far away in the distance.

The rain still splashed against the casement, but the storm had spent
itself; the sky was brightening.  A pale slant of sunshine broke
through the parting clouds and, entering the casement, gleamed on the
jewelled cross at the breast of the Prioress, and kindled into peculiar
radiance the searching light of her clear eyes.

"I know you for a man," she said again.  "You stand there, revealed;
and surely you stand there, shamed.  By plotting and planning, by
assuming our dress, you have succeeded in forcing your undesired
presence into this sacred cloister, where dwells a little company of
women who have left the world, never to return to it again; who have
given up much in order to devote themselves to a life of continual
worship and adoration, gaining thereby a power in intercession which
brings down blessing upon those who still fight life's battles in the
world without.

"But it has meant the breaking of many a tender tie.  There are fathers
and brothers dear to them, whom the nuns would love to see again; but
they cannot do so, save, on rare occasions, in the guest-room at the
gate; and then, with the grille between.

"Saving Bishop or Priest, no foot of man may tread our cloisters; no
voice of man may be heard in these cells.

"Yet--by trick and subterfuge--you have intruded.  Methinks I scarce
should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done."

The Prioress paused.

The figure stood, with folded arms, immovable, leaning against the
wall.  There was a quality in this motionless silence such as the
Prioress had not connected with her idea of Mary Seraphine's "Cousin
Wilfred."

This was not a man to threaten.  Her threat came back to her, as if she
had flung it against a stone wall.  She tried another line of reasoning.

"I know you, Sir Wilfred," she said.  "And I know why you are here.
You have come to tempt away, or mayhap, if possible, to force away one
of our number who but lately took her final vows.  There was a time,
not long ago, when you might have thwarted her desire to seek and find
the best and highest.  But now you come too late.  No bride of Heaven
turns from her high estate.  Her choice is made.  She will abide by it;
and so, Sir Knight, must you."

The rain had ceased.  The storm was over.  Sunshine flooded the cell.

Once more the Prioress spoke, and her voice was gentle.

"I know the disappointment to you must be grievous.  You took great
risks; you adventured much.  How long you have plotted this intrusion,
I know not.  You have been thwarted in your evil purpose by the
faithfulness of one old woman, our aged lay-sister, Mary Antony, who
never fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they return,
and who reported at once to me that one more had returned than went.

"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 belovèd, and I will tell thee
the cruel, and yet blessèd, 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 blessèd 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 belovèd, 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 belovèd, 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 blessèd 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.

"Blessèd 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 belovèd, 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, belovèd, 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:
"Blessèd 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
blessèd 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
piercèd 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 blessèd 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 blessèd 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 belovèd.  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 blessèd 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.

"Now I happen to know that the Knight daily spends the hour of Vespers
in the Cathedral crypt, kneeling before the shrine of Saint Oswald
beside a stretcher whereon lies one of his men, much bandaged about the
head, swathed in linen, and covered with a cloak.  The Knight has my
leave to lay the sick man before the holy relics, daily, for five days.
I asked of him what he expected would result from so doing.  He made
answer: 'A great recovery and restoration.'"

The Bishop paused, as if meditating upon the words.  Then he slowly
repeated them, taking evident pleasure in each syllable.

"A great recovery and restoration," said the Bishop, and smiled.

"Well?  The blessèd relics can do much.  They may avail to mend a
broken head.  Could they mend a broken heart?  I know not.  That were,
of the two, the greater miracle."

The Bishop glanced at the Prioress.

Her face was averted.

"Well, my daughter, matters being as they are, you may inform Sister
Mary Seraphine that, should she chance to lose her way among the
hundred and forty-two columns, when passing through the crypt after
Vespers, she will find a Knight, who will doubtless know what to do
next.  If he can contrive to take her safely from the Cathedral and out
of the Precincts, she will have to ride with him to Warwick, where a
priest will be in readiness to wed them.  But it would be well that
Sister Mary Seraphine should have some practice in mounting and riding,
before she goes on so adventurous a journey.  She may remember the
crimson trappings of her palfrey, and yet have forgotten how to sit
him.  It is for us to make sure that the Knight's brave plans for the
safe capture of his lady, do not fail for lack of any help which we may
lawfully give."

The Bishop stretched out his hand and took up his biretta.

"When did the nuns last have a Play Day?" he asked.

"Not a month ago," replied the Prioress.  "They made the hay in the
river meadow, and carried it themselves.  They thought it rare sport."

The Bishop put on his biretta.

"Give them a Play Day, dear Prioress, in honour of my visit.  Tell them
I asked that they should have it the day after to-morrow.  I will then
send you my white palfrey, suitably caparisoned.  Brother Philip, who
attends me when I ride, and who has the palfrey well controlled, shall
lead him in.  The nuns can then ride in turns, in the river meadow; and
our little foolish bird can try her wings, before she attempts the long
flight from Worcester to Warwick."

The Bishop rose, crossed the cell, and knelt long, in prayer, before
the crucifix.

When he turned toward the door, the Prioress said: "I pray you, give me
your blessing, Reverend Father, before you go."

She knelt, and the Bishop extended his hand over her bowed head.

Expecting a Latin formula, she was almost startled when tender words,
in the English tongue, fell softly from the Bishop's lips.

"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; and grant unto thee grace and
strength to choose and to do the harder part, when the harder part is
His will for thee."

After which: "_Benedictio Domini sit vobiscum_," said the Bishop; and
made the sign of the cross over the bowed head of the Prioress.




CHAPTER XX

HOLLY AND MISTLETOE

Symon, Bishop of Worcester, had bidden Sir Hugh d'Argent to sup with
him at the Palace.

It was upon the second day after the Bishop's conversation with the
Prioress in the Convent at Whytstone; the evening of the Nun's Play
Day, granted in honour of his visit.

The Bishop and the Knight supped together, with much stately ceremony,
in the great banqueting hall.

Knowing the Bishop's love of the beautiful, and his habit of being
punctilious in matters of array and deportment, acquired no doubt
during his lengthy sojourns in France and Italy, the Knight had donned
his finest court suit--white satin, embroidered with silver; jewelled
collar, belt, and shoes; a small-sword of exquisite workmanship at his
side.  A white cloak, also richly embroidered with silver, hung from
his shoulders; white silk hose set off the shapely length of his limbs.
The blood-red gleam of the magnificent rubies on his breast,
sword-belt, and shoe-buckles, were the only points of colour in his
attire.

The Bishop's keen eyes noted with quiet pleasure how greatly this
somewhat fantastically beautiful dress enhanced the dark splendour of
the Knight's noble countenance, displayed his superb carriage, and
shewed off the supple grace of his limbs, which, in his ordinary garb,
rather gave the idea of massive strength alone.

The Bishop himself wore crimson and gold; and, just as the dark beauty
of the Knight was enhanced by the fair white and silver of his dress,
so did these gorgeous Italian robes set off the frail whiteness of the
Bishop's delicate face, the silvery softness of his abundant hair.  And
just as the collar of rubies gleamed like fiery eyes upon the Knight's
white satin doublet, so from out the pallor of the Prelate's
countenance the eyes shone forth, bright with the fires of eternal,
youth, the gay joy of life, the twinkling humour of a shrewd yet kindly
wit.

They supped at a round table of small size, in the very centre of the
huge apartment.  It formed a point of light and brightness from which
all else merged into shadow, and yet deeper shadow, until the eye
reached the dark panelling of the walls.

The light seemed to centre in the Knight--white and silver; the colour,
in the figure of the Bishop--crimson and gold.

In and out of the shadows, swift and silent, on sandalled feet, moved
the lay-brothers serving the feast; watchful of each detail; quickly
supplying every need.

At length they loaded the table with fruit; put upon it fresh flagons
of wine, and finally withdrew; each black-robed figure merging into the
black shadows, and vanishing in silence.

The Bishop's Chaplain appeared in a distant doorway.

"_Benedicite_," said Symon of Worcester, looking up.

"_Deus_," replied the Chaplain, making a profound obeisance.

Then he stood erect--a grim, austere figure, hard features, hollow
eyes, half-shrouded within his cowl.

He looked with sinister disapproval at the distant table, laden with
fruit and flagons; at the Bishop and the Knight, now sitting nigh to
one another; the Bishop in his chair of state facing the door, the
Knight, on a high-backed seat at the Bishop's right hand, half-way
round the table.

"Holly and Mistletoe," muttered the Chaplain, as he closed the great
door.

"Yea, verily!  Mistletoe and Holly," he repeated, as he strode to his
cell.  "The Reverend Father sups with the World, and indulges the
Flesh.  Methinks the Devil cannot be far off."

Nor was he.

He was very near.

He had looked over the Chaplain's shoulder as he made his false
obeisance in the doorway.

But he liked not the pure white of the Knight's dress, and he feared
the clear light in the Prelate's eyes.  So, when the Chaplain closed
the door, the Devil stayed on the outside, and now walked beside the
Chaplain along the passage leading to his cell.

There is no surer way of securing the company of the Devil, than to
make sure he is at that moment busy with another--particularly if that
other chance to be the most saintly man you know, and merely
displeasing to you, at the moment, because he hath not bidden you to
sup with him.  The Devil and the Chaplain made a night of it.


The Bishop's gentle "_Benedicite_" spread white wings and flew, like an
affrighted dove, over the head of the bowing Chaplain, into the chill
passage beyond.

But, just as the great door was closing, it darted in again, circled
round the banqueting hall, and came back to rest in the safe nest of
the kindly heart which had sent it forth.

No blessing, truly vitalised, ever ceases to live.  If the blessed be
unworthy, it returns on swift wing to the blesser.




CHAPTER XXI

SO MUCH FOR SERAPHINE!

A sense of peace fell upon the banqueting hall, with the closing of the
door.  All unrest and suspicion seemed to have departed.  An atmosphere
of confidence and serenity pervaded the great chamber.  It was in the
Bishop's smile, as he turned to the Knight.

"At length the time has come when we may talk freely; and truly, my
son, we have much to say."

The Knight glanced round the spacious hall, and his look implied that
he would prefer to talk in a smaller chamber.

"Nay, then," said the Bishop.  "No situation can be better for a
private conversation than the very centre of a very large room.  Have
you not heard it said that walls have ears?  Well, in a small room,
they may use them to some purpose.  But here, we sit so far removed
from the walls that, strain their ears as they may, they will hear
nothing; even the very key-hole, opening wide its naughty eye, will see
naught, neither will the adjacent ear hear anything.  We may speak
freely."

The Bishop, signing to the Knight to help himself to fruit, moved the
wine toward him.  At his own right hand stood a Venetian flagon and
goblet of ruby glass, ornamented with vine leaves and clusters of
grapes.  The Bishop drank only from this flagon, pouring its contents
himself into the goblet which he held to the light before he drank from
it, enjoying the rich glow of colour, and the beauty of the en

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