Chapter III: The Young Woman Speaks

We are the young women and the beloved. Little sisters, what are you but the betrothed?

A year of devouring love, a year of longing; long year in the valley of parched shadow--year of loneliness and grief!

See, we are dying of love, and none to slake us. Worst waste of all, our hearts are useless; we are dying of ourselves and of all life. O young girls, little do you know of the hearts of women beloved, and lovers’ tears like blood!

Little do you know of the harvest we have reaped, or of the meaning of that funeral train that comes across the meadows, parting the hedges to right and left and bearing a hidden treasure like a monstrance born across the wheat.

O my sister, burning hot and palest, come to me lest you fall, and let me hold you.

He whom the young women carry on their shoulders, knee-deep in flowers, was your once lover.

Between the sea and the Marne he died for love of our Lady, the Blessed Virgin. He loved....