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

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

"As I looked, they turned together, pa.s.sed out through the doorway, and paced slowly down the pa.s.sage.

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

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

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

"So I cried out, because she had left that splendid Knight. And, as I cried, the silver bells fell silent, all grew

dark around me, and I knew no more, until I woke up in mine own bed, tended by Sister Mary Rebecca, and Sister Teresa; with Abigail--noisy hussy!--helping to fetch and carry.

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

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

Mary Antony had dropped off to sleep.

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

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

Then she opened the door, and pa.s.sed out; closing it behind her.

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

Yea, verily! She was alone!

She raised herself upon the couch, listening intently.

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE HARDER PART

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

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

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

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

And on another strip of parchment:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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