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

The Prioress paused, looking past the Bishop at the gracious figure of the Madonna. She had remembered, of a sudden, how Hugh had knelt there, saying: "Blessed Virgin . . . help this woman of mine to understand that if she break her troth to me, holding herself from me, now, when I am come to claim her, she sends me out to an empty life, to a hearth beside which no woman will sit, to a home forever desolate."

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

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

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

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

One so fixed in her determination, so persistent in her a.s.sertion, so loud in her a.s.severation, would scarce be likely to hear the inward whisperings of Divine suggestion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The second is that, in order to regain the usual equipoise of your mental att.i.tude, you ride to-day, for an hour, in the river meadow. My white palfrey, Iconoklastes, shall be in the courtyard at noon.

Yesterday, my daughter, you rode for pleasure. To-day you will ride for penance; and incidentally"--an irrepressible little smile crept round the corners of the Bishop's mouth, and twinkled in his eyes--"incidentally, my daughter, you will work off a certain stiffness from which you must be suffering, after the unwonted exercise. Ah me!"

said the Bishop, "that is ever the Divine method. Punishments should be remedial, as well as deterrent. There is much stiffness of mind of which we must be rid before we can stoop to the portal of G.o.d's 'whosoever' and, pa.s.sing through the narrow gate, enter the Kingdom of Heaven as little children."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her steadfast eyes did not falter.

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

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

He moved toward the door.

The Prioress reached it before him.

With her hand upon the latch: "Your blessing, Reverend Father,"

entreated the Prioress, rather breathlessly.

"_Benedicite_," said the Bishop, with uplifted fingers, but with eyes averted; and pa.s.sed out.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE WHITE STONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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