Chapter III: Part 3

Once alone in her cell, the young girl took off her riding-garments,—the unusual cap and veil, boots, gloves, and spur,—and put them carefully away in her oaken chest. Afterwards she straightened her bliault and her hair, set her image of the Virgin straight upon its shelf, and moved the priedieu a little more accurately between the door and her bed. Then, standing up, she looked about her. There was nothing more to do. She was alone with her heart, and she could no longer escape from thinking. So she sat down on the bed, folded her hands upon her knees, and in this wise twisted out the meaning of her day, till she found in her secret soul that the unspeakable, the unholy, the most glorious, had come to her, to fill the great void of her empty life.

_CHAPTER FOUR_
THE PASSION

In the evening of the day of that momentous visit, after compline was over, and she was in her bed in her cell, Laure yielded herself up to sleep only after a rebellious struggle; she wished intensely to lie awake with her wonderful thoughts. Sleep prevailed, however, and was sound and dreamless; for she was physically tired out.

At two in the morning came the first boom of the church bell pulled by the sleep-laden sexton,—the beginning of the call to matins. The night was very black; and only after two or three minutes did Laure struggle up from her bed, trembling with that dead, numb feeling that results from being roused too suddenly from heavy unconsciousness. Mechanically the young girl felt about for her lantern and opened the door into the dimly lit corridor. There were half a dozen nuns and novices grouped about the stone lamp which burned all night on the wall, and from which the sisters were accustomed to light their cressets for matins. Laure waited her turn in a dazed manner, and when she had obtained the light, went back to her cell, left the door unclosed according to rule, and, placing the lantern on the small table, knelt at her priedieu.

So far her every move had been mechanical. Her brain was not yet awake. But, with the first words of the Agnus Dei, the full memory of yesterday suddenly flashed upon her. She had been at home, and had found there Flammecœur!—Flammecœur! Her own heart flamed up, and the prayer died away from it. Her lips moved on, and the murmur of her voice continued to swell the low chorus that spread through the whole priory. But Laure was not speaking those words. Her whole mind and heart had turned irrevocably to another subject,—to another god, the little, rosy-winged boy that finds his way into the sternest places, and lights them with his magic presence till they are changed for their inhabitants beyond recognition. Strictly speaking, Laure was not thinking of the trouvère. Her thoughts refused to review him in the light of her knowledge of him. She would not think of his personality,—his face, eyes, form, or manner. Her heart shrank from anything so bold. She refused to question herself. Yet her mind was full of him, and the other subject in her thoughts was this: that in eleven days more, were God pitying to her, she should, perhaps—ever perhaps—see him again.

When matins and lauds were over, the sisters returned to bed till the hour for dressing, a quarter to five. Laure was accustomed to sleep soundly through this period. But to-day she refused to close her eyes. Nay, it was ecstasy to her to lie dreaming of many old, vague things that had scarce any connection with her new heart, and yet would have had no place at all with her had they not carried as an undercurrent the image of that same new god.

All day Laure went about with a song in her soul. Why she should have been glad, who can say? What possible hope for happiness there was for her, what idea of any finale save one of grief, resignation, or despair, she never thought to ask herself. She let her new happiness take possession of her without stopping to analyze it. And it was as well that she did no analyzing. For a logical process would inevitably have brought her to the beginning of these things, to the moment, the ineffable moment, when the hand of Flammecœur had first rested on her own.

This first morning passed away. Dinner was eaten, and recreation time came. Now Eloise persistently sought Laure’s company; and Laure, with equal persistence and quite remarkable adroitness, avoided her. The young nun knew, from the face of Eloise, that there were a thousand silly thoughts ready to come out of her; and Laure could not bear to have her own delicate, rainbow dreams so crudely disturbed. And there was something more about the presence of Eloise that disturbed the daughter of Le Crépuscule; this was the understanding between them that they should not confess the real reason for their tardy arrival on the previous day. Laure had made up her mind, tacitly, to confess nothing—yet. But she did not like to be reminded of the fact.

That night Laure successfully resisted the dictates of sleep, with the result that, all next day, she felt dull and weak. When dinner and sext were over, and recreation came, she obtained ready permission to retire to her cell instead of going to the garden or the court or the library with the other nuns. Once alone and safe from the attacks of Eloise, who was becoming importunate, she lay down on her bed and sank, almost at once, to rest. While she slept, the sun came out upon the outer world, and poured its beams over the chill valley beyond the priory. The gray, lowering clouds were broken up. The heavens shone blue, and the ice-crust shimmered with myriad, sparkling diamonds. No sunlight could enter the cell of sleep; for it was afternoon, and the single little window looked toward the east. But after nearly an hour of shining stillness, there came a sound from the frozen vale that was more beautiful than sunlight. It reached Laure’s ears, and woke her. She rose up, hearkening incredulously for a moment, and then, with a smothered cry of delight, threw herself forward again on the bed, and laughed and moaned together into the cold sheets.

From below, just outside her window, rose a voice, a tenor voice, high and clear and mellow, singing a chanson of the south to the accompaniment of a six-stringed lute. After a few seconds Laure ventured to raise her head and listen. With a thrill of ecstasy she caught the words,—

“_Ele ot plain le visage, si fu encolorez;
Les iex vairs et riants, lonc et traités le nez;
La bouche vermeillête, le menton forcelé;
Le col plain et blanc plus que n’est flor de pré._”

At this point in the familiar song, sung with a fervor she had never dreamed of, Laure rose involuntarily from the bed, and, redder than any flower, stole to the window. Timidly, her heart beating so that she was like to choke, she looked out into the snowy clearing. Just beneath her, in the shadow of the wall, so close that a whisper from him might easily have been heard, stood Flammecœur.

He was scanning closely the row of cell windows above him, hoping against hope for a sight of Laure’s face. Ignorant as he was of convent hours, he knew that he had but the barest chance of making her hear; and that there was less than this chance of seeing her. Thus when Laure’s face, framed in its soft white veil, looked out to him, Flammecœur experienced a rush of emotion that was overpowering. She inspired him with a reverence that he had not known he could feel for any woman. Her face was so glorified in his eyes that she looked like an image of the Holy Virgin. Breaking off in the middle of the song, he fell upon his knees there in the snow, uttering incoherent and indistinguishable phrases of adoration.

Flammecœur was theatrical enough; also he was hard, utterly unscrupulous, and a scoffer at holy things. His only idol was his love for beauty. This was his religion, and he had worshipped it consistently from boyhood. Now he had found its almost perfect embodiment in this girl, in whom innocence, purity, youth, and beauty were inextricably mingled. And Flammecœur strove to adjust his rather callous spirit to hers, feeling that he would sooner breathe his last than shock her delicacy—till he had attained his end.

Now, in the dying sunlight, the two talked together; and in the light of his new reverence the young nun lost a little of her timidity and made open confession in her looks, though never in her words, of her delight in his presence.

“Tell me, O Maiden of Angels,” he said, addressing her in a term that at once brought them both a sense of familiarity and of pleasure, “tell me, is this thy regular hour of solitude? Could I—might I hope—to see thee often here—hold speech with thee—without endangering thy devotions?”

“Nay, verily!” whispered Laure, hastily. “Oh, thou must not come! Nay, I am supposed to be with the other sisters at this hour of recreation. Only to-day was I permitted—”

“And didst thou think of me? Hopest thou I would come? Didst think—”

“Monsieur!” Laure’s tone was reproachful and embarrassed.

“Forgive me! Though verily I know not how I have offended thee!”

Laure was about to utter her reproach when suddenly, around the corner of the wall, appeared the head of Flammecœur’s horse. All at once, at this apparition, the old spirit of freedom and the old love of liberty rushed over her. “Ah, would that I might leap down there into the snow, and mount with thee thy steed, and ride, and ride, and ride back to my home in Le Crépuscule!” she cried out, utterly forgetful of herself and of her position.

Instantly Flammecœur seized her mood. “By all the saints, come on!” he cried. “I will catch thee in mine arms; and we will ride! We will ride and ride—not back—”

“Alas! Now Heaven forgive me! What have I said? Farewell, monsieur! Indeed, farewell!”

And ere Flammecœur could grasp her sudden revulsion of feeling, she was gone; the window above him was empty. He stayed where he was for some moments, meditating on what plea would be successful. Finally, deciding silence the surer part, he remounted his horse and turned slowly to the west, through the chill evening, doing battle with himself. He found that he was unable to cope with the flame that this pretty nun had kindled in his brain. His anger rose against her, to be once more overtopped by passion. And had he not been so occupied in trying to regain sufficient self-control to make some safe plan of action, he might have known himself for the knave he surely was.

In the priory three days went prayerfully by; and at the end of that time Laure found herself sick with misery. Flammecœur had laid hold of her heart, and her struggles against the thought of him began to grow stronger; for she longed to escape from her present state of madness. Incredible as it may seem, she never had, in connection with him, one single tainted thought. Laure was a peculiarly innocent girl,—innocent even of any unshaped desire or longing. The force of her nature had always found relief in physical activity. In her home life all things had been clean and free before her. And in the convent the teaching that emotion was sin had been accepted by her without thought. Nevertheless, in her, all unwaked, there lay a broad, passionate nature that needed but a quickening touch to throw her into such depths as, were she taken unawares, would eventually drag her to her doom. Her ignorance was pitiable; and even now she had entered alone upon a dark stretch of road, the end of which she did not herself know, and which none could prophesy to her.

Three days of unhappiness, of battle with herself, and of longing for a sight of Flammecœur, and then—he came. Again it was the recreation hour, and Laure was in the garden, walking in the cold with one or two of the sisters. Her thoughts had strayed from the general chatter, and her eyes, like her mind, looked afar off. Her companions, rather accustomed to Angelique’s vagaries, paid little attention to her, and she pursued her reverie uninterrupted. Suddenly, from out of the snowy stillness, a sound reached her ears. For an instant her heart ceased to beat; and she halted in her walk. Yes, Flammecœur was singing, somewhere near. It was the same chanson, and it came from the other side of the priory. He must be where he had been before. She looked at the faces of the nuns beside her. Did they not also hear? How dull, how intensely dull they were! She went on for a few steps undecidedly. Then she halted.

“I had forgot,” she said quietly. “I must to my cell. I have five Aves to repeat for inattention at the reading of St. Elizabeth this morning.”

“Methought they were to be said in chapter,” observed one of her companions, indifferently.

“Nay; Reverend Mother gave permission,—in my cell,” answered Laure, rather weakly; for she saw that she should get into difficulty if any one mentioned this matter again. However, Flammecœur’s voice was singing still and, flinging care to the winds, she made a hasty escape.

Fifteen minutes later she was in the church, kneeling at the shrine of St. Joseph. She said twenty Aves there before she rose, yet got no comfort from them. For twenty Aves is small salve to the conscience for the first guilty deceit of one’s life.

That evening was not wholly a pleasant one; yet Laure underwent fierce gusts of happiness. She had seen him again; she had held speech with him, and had smiled when he looked at her. She felt his looks like caresses, and was half ashamed and half enamoured of them. Her night was filled with a tumult of dreams; and when day dawned again she was hot with the fever of unrest.

Days went by, and then weeks, and finally two months, and March was on the world. Hints of spring were borne down the breeze. The deeply frozen earth began slowly, slowly to throw off its weight of ice, and to open its breast to the warm touches of the sun. The black, bare branches of the forest trees waved about uncannily, like gaunt arms, beckoning to the distant summer. And in all this time the situation of the little nun of Crépuscule had not changed. The troubadour still lingered at the Chateau, a welcome guest. And still he haunted the priory, unknown to any one save her whom he continually sought. As yet he had done nothing, said not one word that betrayed his intentions. He had waited patiently till the time should be ripe; and now that time approached. Laure had endured a life of secret torture, but had not succeeded in throwing off the shackles she had voluntarily put on. Nay, she confessed now to herself that, without his occasional coming, she could not have lived. She chafed at their restricted intercourse. She longed to meet him where she could put her hands into his, where she could listen to the sound of his voice without the terror of discovery. All this Flammecœur had read in her, but still he waited till of her own accord she should break her bonds.

There came a day in March when the two, Laure and Flammecœur, with Eloise and her now very _bel ami_, Yvain, were riding from Crépuscule to the priory. As they went, the spring sun sent its beams aslant across the road; and birds, newly arrived from the far south, were site-hunting among the black trees. The air was filled with the chilly sweetness that made one dizzy with dreams of coming summer; and both Laure and the trouvère grew slowly intoxicated as they rode side by side, so close that his knee touched her palfrey’s flank. Behind them, Yvain and Eloise were still discussing their love-notions. The afternoon was misty with approaching sunset. In the radiant golden light, Laure’s heart grew big with unshed tears of life; and before the sobs came, Flammecœur, leaning far toward her, whispered thickly,—

“Thou must come to me alone! I must have thee alone. I must know thy lips. ’Fore God, refuse me not, thou greatly beloved!”

Laure drew a long, shivering breath and looked slowly into his face. Her eyes rested full upon his, and she did not speak, but he read her reply.

“Where shall I come to-night?” he asked.

“To-night!”

“Assuredly. To-night. Dieu! Thinkest thou that I can stand aloof from thee forever? Thinkest thou my blood is water in my veins? To-night!”

Laure mused a little, her eyes looking afar off, as if she dreamed. She brought them back to him with a start. “To-night—by starlight—in the convent garden. Canst thou climb the wall?”

“Ah! thou shalt see!”

Laure’s heart palpitated with the look he gave her, and she sat silent under it, while, bit by bit, all her training, all her year of precepts, all herself, her womanhood, her truth, her steadfastness to righteousness, slipped away from her under the spell of this most powerful of all emotions. And presently she turned to him again with such an expression of exaltation in her poor face, that his heart warmed to her with a tenderer feeling.

“At what hour?” he whispered.

“One hour after the last tolling of the bell at compline after confession.”

“Confession!” the word slipped from him before he thought. He saw Laure turn first scarlet and then very white; and her lips trembled.

“Ah, Laure, most beloved, heed it not! If there be any sin in loving as we love, lay it all on me. For on my soul, I would leave heaven itself gladly behind for thee! And since God created thee as lovely as thou art, wert thou not made to be beloved? Look, Laure! see the gray bird there among the trees! Behold, it is the bird of the Saint Esprit! It is an omen. It is our heavenly sign; therefore be not afraid.”

And as Laure promised him, so she did. She understood so well how the Flaming-heart wanted to be alone with her: did she not also long for solitude with him? And if they were alone for one hour, God was above. He saw and He knew all things. Why, then, should she be afraid?

Therefore Laure went to her cell that night with her soul unshriven, and a heavy weight upon it of mingled joy and pain. Lying fully dressed upon her bed, she heard the great bell boom out the close of another day of praise to God. And when the last vibration had died down the wind, and the sexton had wended her pious way to bed, Laure rose, and prepared herself to go out into the garden. All that she had to do was to wrap herself in her mantle and to cover her head with a hood and veil. But first, following an instinct of dormant conscience, she unwound the rosary from her waist and hung it on the rail of the priedieu, before which she had not prayed to-night. Then she sat down upon her bed and waited,—waited through centuries, through ages, till it seemed to her that dawn must be about to break. But she felt that should she reach the garden before the coming of Flammecœur, her heart would fail indeed. During this time she refused to allow herself to think, though she was very cold and continued to tremble. Finally, when her nerves would stay her no longer, she rose and left her cell. The convent was open before her. The nuns were all asleep. Her sandalled feet made no noise upon the stones, and she passed in safety through corridors and rooms till she reached the library, from which there was an open exit to the garden.

In the doorway she paused and looked out upon the pale moonlit scene. Her heart was beating quite steadily now, and she was able to consider almost with calmness the possibility that she was early. The light from the half-moon fell upon her where she stood, and suddenly she beheld a dark-cloaked figure run out of the shrubbery by the northwestern wall and come hurrying toward her. At the same moment she herself started forward, half fearfully. A moment later she was caught in Flammecœur’s arms, and a rain of kisses beat down upon her face.

Gasping, crimson, horrified, she tore herself away from the embrace with the strength of one outraged.

“Stop! In God’s name, stop! Wouldst do me dishonor?” she cried out, in an anger that bordered upon tears.

“Dishonor! Mon Dieu! wherefore, prithee, camest thou into this garden, then? Was it to stand here in this doorway and permit me to scream my devotion at thee from yonder wall?”

In her nervousness Laure suddenly laughed. But she was forced back to gravity, as he went on with a sudden rush of passion,—

“Laure, Laure, is it thy intent to drive me mad? Faith, what man would forbear as I have forborne with thee? Thinkest thou any one would wait for weeks, nay, months, as I have waited, and feel thee at last free and in his arms, to be instantly thrust away again? Nay, by my soul! Thou art here, and thou art mine, and I have much to ask of thee. Christ! Thine eyes! Thy hair! Laure, I shall bear thee away from this prison-house. I will have thee for all mine own. Thou must leave thy cell by night, and come to me here. Outside the wall Yvain will wait with horses; and we will ride away—ride like hounds—out of this land of tears, southward, into the country of freedom and roses and love! There we shall dwell together, thou and I—thou and I—Laure, Laure, my sweet! And who in all God’s earth before hath known such joy as we shall know! Answer me, Laure, answer me! Say thou’lt come!”

Once again he took her in his arms, but more calmly now, the force of his passion having spent itself in words but half articulate. And now he perceived how she was all trembling and afraid; and so he soothed her with gentle phrases and tender caresses, for indeed Flammecœur loved this maid as truly as it was in him to love at all. And it seemed to him a joy to have the protecting of her.

“Speak to me, answer me, greatly beloved,” he insisted, drawing her face up to his.

Laure clung to him and wept, and did not speak. All that followed was but a confusion of kisses, of pleadings, of tears and restraints, to both of them; and presently Laure was struggling from his arms and crying to him that it was near matins, and she must go. Once again, and finally, Flammecœur demanded a reply to his plea. There was hesitation, doubting, evident desire, and very evident fear. Then, staking everything, he urged her thus,—

“Listen, Laure. I would not have thee decide all things now in thy mind. In one week I will be here, as to-night, at the same hour, in this place; and all things will be prepared for our flight. If thou come to me before the matins bell rings out, all will be well, and we shall go forth together into heaven. If thou come not,—why, I have tarried far too long in this Bretagne, and Yvain and I will go on together into the world, and thou shalt see me no more forever. Fair choice and honorable I give thee, for that I love thee better than myself. Now fare thee well, lady of my heart’s delight. God in His sweet mercy give thee into my keeping!”

With a final kiss he put her from him and saw her go; and then he threw himself over the wall, and set out on his return ride to the Castle by the sea.

Laure descended to prime next morning, trembling for fear of unknown possibilities. But no one in the church saw her muddy sandals; and her skirts and mantle were not more soiled round the bottom than was customary with those nuns that took their recreation in the garden. By the time the breaking of the fast occurred, she was reassured, and felt herself safe from the consequences of her night. Then, and only then, did she turn her mind to the choice that she must make during the ensuing sennight.

That week was one of terror by night and woe by day. Hourly she resolved to renounce forever all thoughts of the flesh, confess her sin, and remain true to the convent for life. For the first three days these renewals of faith made her strong and stronger. She wept and she prayed and she hoped for strength; and finally she began to believe that the Devil was beaten. And yet—and yet—she did not even now confess the story of her acquaintance with Flammecœur. She said to herself that she would win this last fight alone; but she did not seek to find if there was self-deception in that excuse. No one but the girl Eloise had any idea that there existed such a person as the trouvère; and Eloise was unaware that Sœur Angelique had ever seen that gallant gentleman save when she and Yvain were present. Moreover, the stupid one was becoming alarmed lest the sudden devotional fervor of Demoiselle Angelique should lead to the cessation of those meetings for which her vague soul so impiously thirsted. The rest of the sisters perceived Laure’s extra prayers and rigorous fasting with admiration and approval, and put them down to one of those sudden rushes of fervor to which young nuns were peculiarly subject.

After three days of this devotional effort, the Devil widened his little wedge of temptation, and roused in her an overpowering desire to see her lover again. By now she had lost her shame at the first hot kiss ever laid upon her lips, and—alas, poor humanity!—was longing secretly for more. So long, however, as Flammecœur was still in Le Crépuscule, she believed that she could endure everything. But she knew that after four days he would be there no more; and if she let her chance go, it was the last she should ever have. Then her mind strayed to the after-picture of her life here in the nunnery; and at the thought her heart grew numb and cold. Yet still she fought and prayed, trusting to no one her weight of temptation, keeping steadfastly to that self-deceptive determination to finish the battle alone.

The torturing week came slowly to an end. On the final night, after compline, she went to her cell feeling like a spirit condemned to eternal night. Once alone, face to face with her soul, she sat down upon a chair, bent her head upon her breast, and thought. She did not extinguish her light, neither did she make preparations for bed. Unconsciously she set herself to wait through the hour following compline, as if its finish would bring the end of her trial. The minutes were passing smoothly by, and there was a great, unuttered cry of terror in her heart. What should she do? Nay, at the last minute, what _would_ she do? Here her mind broke. She could think no more. Her brain was a vacuum. Presently her muscles began to twitch. Her flesh became cold and damp, and the hot saliva poured into her mouth. Would that hour never end?

It ended. By now Flammecœur was in the garden, three hundred feet away. Flammecœur was waiting for her. Horses were there, and garments for her,—other garments than these of sickening white wool. How long would the trouvère wait? Till matins, he had said. But if that were not true? If he should go before—if he were going _now_!

Laure started to her feet, halted, hesitated, then sank slowly to her knees. The first words of a prayer came from her lips; but in the middle of the phrase she was silent. Prayer was suddenly nothing to her. She had prayed so much; she had prayed so long! The beauty of appeals to the Most High was lost just now. She felt all the weight of her never-satisfied religion upon her, and she revolted at it. For the moment love itself seemed desirable only in so much as it would get her away from this place of her hypocrisy. A sudden thought of her mother came to her. For one moment—two—five—she kept her mind fixed. Then she sobbed. Flammecœur was below, calling to her with every fibre of his being. She knew that. She could see him waiting there, her cloak over his arm. With a low wail she stretched out her arms to the mental image. Afterwards, scarcely knowing what she did, she knelt down before the bright-painted picture of the Madonna on the wall of her cell, and kissed the stones of the floor below it.

Then she stood up, pressing her hands tightly to her throat to ease the pain there. She looked around her, and in that look saw everything in the little stone room that had for so long been her home. Then, removing from her head the coif, wimple, and veil, the symbols of her virginity, she extinguished her lantern, and walked, blindly and wearily, out of her cell. So she passed, without making any noise, through the convent, into the library, and out—out—out into the garden beyond.

Instantly Flammecœur was at her side. “Laure!” cried he, half laughing in his triumph. “Laure! Now we shall go!”

Over his arm he carried a voluminous black mantle and a close, dark hood. These he put upon her, getting small assistance in the matter, for Laure’s movements were wooden, her hands like ice.

“Now—canst climb the wall with me?” he asked, gazing at her in her transformation, and noting how pure and white her skin showed in its dark frame.

She gasped and bent her head. Thereupon he seized her in his arms and carried her to the wall. There she surpassed his hopes; for her old, tomboyish skill suddenly came back to her, and she scrambled up the rough stones more agilely than he. Once in the road outside the garden, Flammecœur gave a low whistle. Then, out of the shadow of the wood, on the north side of the road, came Yvain, riding one steed, and leading that of Flammecœur, on which were both saddle and pillion. Flammecœur leaped to his place, and, bending over, held out his hand to Laure.

“Thou comest freely,” he whispered.

Laure looked up into his eyes. “Freely,” she answered, surrendering her soul.

He laughed again, softly, as she climbed up behind him, by the help of his feet and his hands. And then, in another moment, they were off, into the moonlit night. And what that night concealed from Laure, what future of fierce joy, of terror, of misery, and of unutterable heartbreak, how should she know, poor girl, whose only guide was God Inscrutable, working His mysterious way alone, in heaven on high?

_CHAPTER FIVE_
SHADOWS

On the day after Laure’s flight, Madame Eleanore left the great dinner-table and went to her bedroom early in the afternoon. Once again, as a year ago, she was alone there, hovering over her priedieu. Only this day was not sunny, but cold and damp, and very gray. Eleanore was in her usual mood of lonely melancholy, but when Alixe tapped at the door she was admitted, and madame ceased her devotions and bade the girl come in and sit down to her embroidery frame beside the window. Latterly it had become a habit of Alixe’s to break in upon her foster-mother’s elected solitude, and to draw her, willy-nilly, out of her sadness. If madame perceived the kindly intention in these interruptions, she did not comment upon it, but accepted the maid’s devotion with growing affection.

When Alixe entered, madame also seated herself near the window, yet did not take up any work, leaving the tambour frame and spinning-wheel both idle in their places. She regarded Alixe for a few moments in silence, wondering why the young girl did not speak, finally putting her dulness down to the fact that it was but yesterday morning they had bidden Flammecœur and his squire God-speed on their journey to Normandy. Their long sojourn at Crépuscule had brought a gayety to the Castle that made it doubly dull now that they were gone. Madame pondered for some time on the subject, and presently spoke of it.

“Sieur Bertrand hath a dreary sky for his journey.”

“But a promise of beauty in the land to which he goeth,” responded Alixe, with something of an effort.

“Mayhap. I have not been in Normandy.”

And here the conversation ended. They sat together, these two women, listening to the incessant beating of the heavy waves on the cliff far below, and to the tap, tap, of the rain upon the windows; but neither found it in her heart to speak again. Alixe was shading her bird from blue into green, and Eleanore sat with folded hands, her eyes looking far away, musing upon the nothingness of her life. Suddenly there came a clamor at the door. Somewhat startled, Eleanore called admittance, and immediately David the dwarf walked into the room, stepped to the right of the doorway, and ushered in his companion, announcing her gravely,—

“Sœur Celeste from the Couvent des Madeleines.”

The sub-prioress, her white cloak and veil damp and stringing with rain, came slowly into the room and courtesied, first to Eleanore, then to Alixe.

Madame rose hastily, in some surprise, and went forward.

“Give you God’s greeting, good sister,” she said.

The nun returned the salutation, and then, with some hesitation, indicated the little dwarf in a gesture that showed her desire that he should leave the room. Madame accordingly motioned him away, and when he was gone, turned to the nun with a hint of anxiety on her face. The new-comer did not hesitate in her mission. Leaning over, she asked eagerly,—

“Madame, is Angelique here, with you?”

Eleanore looked at her blankly. “Laure?—Laure is with you. Laure is—What sayest thou, woman?”

Sœur Celeste resignedly bent her head. For some seconds nothing was said. Alixe, her face grown ashen, her body changed to ice, rose, and moved to the side of madame. Then she asked softly, “What hath happened, good sister?”

“Angelique—Laure—the demoiselle—is not in the convent. We have searched for her everywhere. Her veil and wimple were found in her cell upon the bed. Beyond this there is no trace of her. This morning she came not to the church for prime, and we thought she had overslept. She hath so much fasted and prayed of late that Reverend Mother granted indulgence, and bade us let her rest. At breaking of the fast Sœur Eloise was despatched to her cell, and returned with word that she was not there. Since that hour even the daily services have been suspended, while we sought for her. In the garden we found footprints,—those of a woman, and of a man. Perchance they were hers—yet—”

“It is a lie! That is a lie!” burst from Eleanore’s white lips. “Woman, woman, unsay thy words! No man hath ever seen her,—my Laure!”

“I said it not, Madame Eleanore; I but said mayhap,” ventured the gentle sister, timidly. But Eleanore did not hear her. White, rigid, her every muscle drawn tense, she stood there staring before her into space; while Alixe, feeling this scene to be too intimate even for her presence, glided slowly from the room.

Immediately outside the closed door stood David the dwarf, moving restlessly from one spot to another, biting his thick lips, and working his heavy black brows with great nervousness. Seeing Alixe, he seized upon her at once.

“I know what it is: Laure hath gone away, hath she not?”

Alixe simply nodded.

“Yea, I know it,—with that scoundrelly trouvère!”

Alixe quivered as if she had been touched upon the raw; but David paid no attention to her movement of pain.

“Come,” he jerked out nervously; “come away from this room. Come below. I will tell thee what I saw in the fellow.”

The two of them walked silently across the broad upper hall and down the great staircase into the lower room, which was always deserted at this hour. Here Alixe and the dwarf seated themselves on tabourets at one of the long tables, and David began to talk. It seemed that he had watched Flammecœur closely, and had seen a good deal of his attentions to Laure; knew how he rode with her to and from the priory, guessed Laure’s all too apparent feeling for him, and was aware that most of the hours in which the troubadour had supposedly hunted, hawked, or gone to St. Nazaire, had really been spent in the neighborhood of the priory, though how much he had seen of the nun, David could not know.

Alixe listened to him without much comment, and agreed in her heart with all that he said. But she was at a loss to comprehend her own bitterness of spirit at thought of what Flammecœur had done. She loved Laure truly; yet these sensations of hers were not for Laure, but for herself alone; and this girl, so acute at reading the minds of others, failed entirely to read her own; for had she not soundly hated Flammecœur? _Had_ she hated him?

It was a heavy hour that these two, dwarf and peasant born, spent waiting for their lady to give some sign. At length, however, there were footsteps on the stairs, and both of them rose, as Eleanore, followed, not accompanied, by the white-robed nun, descended.

Madame was very erect, very brilliant-eyed, very white and stiff, but she had perfect control over herself. As she swept toward the great door, David could plainly see her state, and Alixe read well her heart; yet neither of them could but admire her splendid self-possession. Out of the Castle and into the courtyard she went, the three others following her, on her way to the keep. In the open doorway of the rough stone tower, she halted; and the dozen lolling henchmen within instantly started to their feet.

“My men,” she said, in a voice as steady and as commanding as that of a lord of Crépuscule, “my men, a great blow has fallen upon me, and a disgrace to all that dwell in this Castle. Laure, my daughter, your demoiselle, the lady of all our hearts, hath been stolen from the place of her consecration. She hath been abducted from the priory of the Holy Madeleine, by one that hath broken our bread, and received our hospitality. Bertrand Flammecœur, the troubadour, hath brought dishonor upon Le Crépuscule, and I ask you all to avenge your lord and me!”

Here she was interrupted by a chorus begun in low murmurs of astonishment, and now risen to a roar of wrath. After a moment she raised her hand, and, in the silence that quickly ensued, began again,—

“In the name of your lord, I bid you avenge us! Ride forth, every man of you, into the countryside, in pursuit of the flying hound. Go every man by a different road, nor halt by day or night till you bring me tidings of my child. And to him that shall find and bring her back to me, will I give honor and riches and great love, such as I would give to none that was not of noble blood. Go, nor stay to talk of it.—Go forth in the name of God—and bring me back my child!”

The men needed no further urging to action. As she ceased to speak they sprang from their places, and began preparations for departure with a spirit that showed their devotion to madame and to Laure. Madame stayed in the courtyard till Sœur Celeste and the last henchman had ridden away; and then, when there was no more to see, she turned to Alixe, and, leaning heavily upon the young girl’s shoulder, slowly mounted to her darkening chamber and lay down upon her tapestried bed. Alixe moved gently about the room, bringing her lady such physical comforts as she could, though these were not many. Neither of them spoke, and neither wept. Eleanore lay motionless, staring out into the dusk. Alixe’s eyes closed every now and then, with a kind of deadly weariness that was not physical. But she did not leave madame.

After a long time, when it had grown quite dark, Alixe asked suddenly,—

“Wouldst have a message sent to Rennes, madame?”

“To Gerault? No, it is too late. What could he do? Nay, I will not have the shame of his house published abroad in the Duke’s capital. Speak of it no more.” And, obediently, Alixe was silent.

It was now long past the early supper hour, but neither of the women went downstairs. The thought of food did not occur to Eleanore. Alixe sat by the closed window, brooding deeply. Darkness had come over the sea, and with it clouds dispersed so that a few stars glimmered forth, and at times a moon showed through the ragged mists. Downstairs the young men and maidens had resorted to their usual evening amusements of games, but they played without spirit, and finally, one by one, heavy with unvoiced foreboding, crept off to rest. David the dwarf had not been among them at all to-night. Ever since the ending of supper he had sat outside the door of madame’s room, waiting, patiently, for some sound to come from within. Everything, however, was silent. From her bed the mother, tearless, bright-eyed, watched the broken moonlight creep along the floor, past the figure of Alixe. Her mind was filled with terrible things,—pictures of Laure, and of what the young girl was doubtless enduring. For a long time she contained herself under these thoughts, but finally, racked with unbearable misery, she started up, crying aloud,—

“Alixe! Alixe! Methinks I shall go mad!”

As she spoke, madame rose from the bed, stumbled across the floor, flung open one of the windows, and looked out upon the splendor of the tumbling, moonlit sea. After a moment or two she felt upon her arm a gentle touch, and she knew that Alixe was beside her.

“Mad with thy thoughts, madame? Indeed, meseemeth Laure will not die. Doubtless the Sieur Trouvère loveth her—”

She was interrupted by a long groan.

“Madame?” she whispered, in soft deprecation.

“Not die, Alixe? Not _die_? Dieu! It were now my one prayer for her that she might quickly die!”

“Nay, what is there so terrible for her, save that she hath brought upon herself damnation an she die unrepentant? Wouldst thou not have her live to repent and be shriven?”

Eleanore groaned again. “Thou art too young to understand, Alixe. Ah! her purity! her innocence! How she will suffer! There is no suffering like unto it.” Madame slipped to her knees, there by the window, and putting her arms upon the sill, buried her head in them, and drew two or three terrible breaths. Alixe, helpless, fighting to keep down her own secret woe in the face of this more bitter grief, felt herself useless. She remained perfectly still, looking out at the sea, but noting nothing of its beauty, till, all at once, madame began to speak again, in a muffled voice,—

“I remember well my wedding with the Sieur du Crépuscule. I was of the age and of the innocence of Laure. Never was mortal so happy as I, upon the day of the ceremony at Laval. I loved my lord, and he had given all his honor into my keeping. But had the bitterness of guilt been on me when I was brought home to Le Crépuscule, alone and a stranger in his house, I know not if I could have lived through the shame and bitterness of my first days. Thou canst not know, Alixe; but the humiliation of that time is as fresh in my memory as ’twere but yesterday. Ah! leave me now, maiden. Leave me alone. Thou’st been good and faithful to me, but a mother’s grief she must bear alone. Go thou to bed, child, and, in the name of pity, pray for thy sister!”

So she sent Alixe from the room, and made the door fast after her. After this she did not return to her place at the window, but began slowly to make ready for the night. When at length she was prepared, she wrapped herself closely in a warm woollen mantle, and went to her priedieu. Laure, from the priory, had ceased to accost Heaven. Therefore madame took her daughter’s place, and thence through the night ascended an unceasing, bitter, commanding prayer that Laure should be restored to her mother’s house, or else be mercifully received into the more accessible hereafter.

When morning dawned, her great bed had not been slept in, but throughout that day Eleanore sought no rest. She spent the hours passing from the hall to the keep and thence to the tower at the drawbridge, waiting, hoping, praying for tidings. During the afternoon three or four henchmen rode in, exhausted. But none of them had found any trace of Laure. One, however, who had taken the St. Nazaire road and had reached that town during the night, had learned that Flammecœur and his page had been there on the afternoon of the day they left Crépuscule. And, upon further search, this man found a shop where the trouvère had bought a lady’s mantle and hood, both black. This was all the news that could be got; but it was enough to prove, without the least doubt, Flammecœur’s guilt.

Late in the afternoon Alixe went to work among the falcons, changing some of them from their winter-house to the open falconry in the field. Madame, seeing her at work, went out and watched her for a time. Alixe answered her few remarks with respect, but would not talk herself. The girl was dark-browed to-day, and very silent, and madame, perceiving that something troubled her, shortly left her to herself, and began to pace the damp turf. Hither, presently, came David, with the news that Monseigneur de St. Nazaire had come.

With a cry of sudden relief madame hurried back to the Castle, where the Bishop awaited her. He was gowned as usual in his violet, with round black cap, and gauntlet cut to show his ring. And as she came into the great hall, he advanced to her with both hands outstretched and a look of trouble in his clear eyes.

“Eleanore, for the first time in many years I come to you in sorrow, to bring to you what comfort the Church can give,” he said gently, fixing his eyes upon her to read how she had taken her blow, and from it decide what his attitude toward her should be. For St. Nazaire had a great and affectionate respect for Eleanore, and he was accustomed to treat her with a consideration that he used toward no other woman. It was for this that he had come to her in her grief, at the first moment that he heard the news of Laure’s flight.

“Come thou into this room, where we can be alone,” she said quickly, leading him into the round armory that opened off the great hall immediately opposite the chapel. Half closing the heavy door, she sat down on a wooden settle, motioning the Bishop to a tabouret near at hand.

“Is there any news of her? What hast thou heard?” she asked eagerly, bending toward him.

“I come but now from the priory, where I chanced to go to-day. This morning the girl Eloise, a lay sister, she that was accustomed to ride hither from the priory with Laure, confessed to many rides and love-passages between herself and Yvain the young squire, while Bertrand Flammecœur followed Laure.”

Madame drew a sharp breath, and the Bishop continued: “The girl is now under heavy penance; yet is she a silly thing, and in my heart I find no great blame for her.”

“Then there hath been no word—no news—of Laure? Left she no token in her cell?”

“Nothing, Eleanore, nothing.”

“Ah, St. Nazaire! St. Nazaire! how did we that cruel thing? How took we away from a young girl all her freedom, all her youth, all her love of life? Know I not enough of the woe of loneliness, that I should have sent her forth into that living death? Alas! alas! I am all to blame.”

“Not wholly thou, madame. Perhaps the Church also,” said the Bishop, softly.

Eleanore looked at him in something of amazement. It was the first time that he had ever suggested any criticism of the Church. But after these words had escaped him, the Bishop paused for a little and fixed upon Eleanore a look that she read aright. It told her many things that she had guessed before, many unuttered things that had drawn her closely to St. Nazaire; but it told her also that these things must never be discussed between them; that never again would the man be guilty of so heretical an utterance as that which he had just voiced.

After this he began to speak again, still in the same tone of sympathy, but with a subtle difference in the general tenor of his views. He told her, in a manner eloquent with simplicity, of his talk with Laure on the eve of her consecration. He reminded Eleanore that Laure had entered of her own free will upon the life of a nun. He recalled the girl’s contentment throughout the period of her novitiate; and finally, seeing that he had succeeded in obliterating some of the self-reproach in this woman to whom he was so sincerely attached, he began to prepare her for the blow that he was about to deal, to tell her what words could not soften, to inflict a wound that time could not heal, but which, according to the law of the Roman Catholic Church, he was bound to administer.

Eleanore listened to his plausibly logical phrases with close attention. She sat there before him, elbow on knee, her head resting on her hand, her eyes wandering over the armor-strewn walls. The Bishop talked around his subject, circling ever a little nearer to its climax; but he was still far from the end when madame, suddenly straightening up and looking full into his eyes, interrupted him to ask baldly: “Monseigneur, hast thou never, in thy heart, known the yearning for a woman’s love?”

“Many a time and oft, madame, I have _felt_ love—a deeply reverent love—for woman; and I have rejoiced therein, and given thanks to God,” was the careful reply.

But Eleanore had begun her attack, and she would not be repulsed in the first onslaught. “And has no woman, Reverend Father, known thy love?” she demanded.

“Madame!” A pale flush overspread St. Nazaire’s face. “That question is not—kind,” he said haltingly, but without rebuke.

“Nay. I am not kind now. Make me answer.”

St. Nazaire looked at her thoughtfully, and weighed certain things in certain balances. Because of many years of the confessional and also of free confidence he knew Eleanore thoroughly,—knew how she had suffered every soul-torment; knew her unswerving virtue; sympathized with her intense loneliness. He prized her trust in him more than she was aware, and he feared to jeopardize that confidence now by whatever answer he should make. Ignorant of the purport of her questions, he yet saw that she was in terrible earnest in them. So finally he did the honest and straightforward thing. Answering her look, eye for eye, he said slowly: “Yea, Eleanore of Le Crépuscule, a woman hath known my love. What then?”

“Then if thou, a good man and as strong as any the Church ever knew, found that to human nature a loveless life is an impossibility, how shouldst thou blame a maid, high-strung, full of youth, vitality, emotions that she has not tried, for yielding to the same temptation before which thou didst fall? How is it right that the Church—that God—should demand so much?—should ask more than His creatures can give?”

“Eleanore! Eleanore! thou shalt not question God!”

“I do not question Him. It is—it is—” untried in this exercise, she groped for words. “It is what ye say He saith. It is what ye declare His will to be that I question.”

“What, Eleanore, have I declared His will to be? Have I yet blamed or chid the waywardness of Laure, whom indeed I loved as a dear daughter,—a child of purity and faith?”

“Then, then,” Eleanore bent over eagerly, and her voice shook,—“then, an _thou_ blamest her not, St. Nazaire, thou wilt not—” she clasped her hands in an agony of pleading, “thou wilt not put upon her the terrible ban? Thou wilt not excommunicate her?”