Chapter VIII: Part 8

Now madame came up, and indicated a chair to the Bishop, who, after seeing her seated, sat down himself, while Laure remained on her feet in front of them. Then followed a pause, uncomfortable to all, terrifying to Laure, who was becoming hysterically nervous with dread. She dared not, however, break the silence; and with a convulsive sigh she folded her arms across her breast, and stood waiting for whatever was to come. Monseigneur regarded her closely and steadily, as if he were reading something that he wished to know of her, but at the same time he did not make her shrink from him. On the contrary, his expression brought the assurance that he had lost nothing of his old-time sympathy with human nature. His first question was unhesitatingly direct.

“Laure,” he said very quietly, “art thou bound by the marriage tie to this Bertrand Flammecœur?”

At the sound of the name Laure trembled, and her white face grew whiter still. “No,” she answered in a half-whisper, at the same time clenching her two hands till the nails pierced her flesh.

“And thou hast lived with him, under his name, since thy departure from the priory of the Holy Madeleine?”

Laure paused for a moment to steady her voice, and then answered huskily: “Until two months past.”

“And in that two months?”

“I have begged my way from where we were—hither.”

“Thou hast in this time known none but the man Flammecœur?”

Laure crimsoned and put up her hand in protest. Then she said quietly, “None.”

Monseigneur bowed his head and remained silent for a moment. When he looked at her again it was with a gentler expression. “Laure,” said he, in a very kindly voice, “but a little time after thy flight from the priory, I placed upon thee, and upon the man that abducted thee, the ban of excommunication, for violating the holiest laws of the Holy Church. That ban is not yet raised, and by it, as well thou knowest, all that come in voluntary contact with thee are defiled.”

For a moment Laure dropped her head to her breast. When she lifted it again, her face had not changed; and she asked, “Can that ban ever be lifted?”

“Yes. By me.”

Laure fell upon her knees before him. “What must I do? Tell me the penance! I would give anything—even to my life—yet—nay! There is one thing I will not do.”

St. Nazaire frowned. “What is that?” he asked.

“Father, I will not go back into the priory. I will never return alive into that living death. Rather would I cast myself from the top of the Castle cliff into the sea below, and trust—”

“Laure! Laure! Be silent!” cried Eleanore, sharply.

Laure stopped and stood motionless, her eyes aflame, her face deathly white, her fingers twining and intertwining among themselves, as she waited for St. Nazaire to speak again. His hands were folded upon his knee, and he appeared lost in thought. Only after an unendurable suspense did he look again into the girl’s eyes, saying slowly, in a tone lower than was habitual to him,—

“Thou tookest once the vows of the nun. These, it is true, thou hast broken continually, and hast abused and violated till their chain of virtue binds thee no more. Yet the words of those vows passed thy lips scarce more than a year agone; and for that reason thou art not free. Ere thou canst be absolved of duty to the priory, thou must go to the Mother-prioress and ask her humbly if she will again receive thee into the convent. An she refuse, thou wilt be freed from the bond.”

“Monseigneur—will she set me free?” asked Laure, in a low tone.

“Yea, Laure; for methinks I shall counsel her so to do. Thou hast not the vocation of a nun. Thy spirit is too much thine own, too freedom-loving, to accept the suppression of that secluded life. If I will, I can see to it that thou’rt freed from the priory. But that being accomplished—what then, Demoiselle Laure?”

“Ah—after that—may not the ban be removed? Can I obtain no absolution? Can I not be made free to dwell here in my home in my beloved Castle,—my fitting Crépuscule?—Mother! Shall I not be received here? Have I no home?”

“This is thy home, and I thy mother always. Though my soul be condemned to eternal fire, Laure, thou art my child, the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood; and I will not give thee up.”

“Eleanore!” The Bishop spoke sharply, and his face grew severe. “Eleanore, deceive not thyself. Nor yet thou, thou child of wilfulness! Laure hath sinned not only against the rules of her Church and her God, but against the laws of mankind. Her sin has been great and very ugly. Think not that, by brave words of motherhood, or many tears and pleadings of sudden repentance, she can regain her old position. The stain of this bygone year will remain upon her forever. She is under a heavy ban, and she must go through a rigorous penance ere she can be received again among the undefiled. Art ready, Laure, to place thy sick soul in my hands?”

Laure bent her head.

“Then I prescribe for thee this penance: Thou shalt go alone, on foot, to Holy Madeleine, and there seek of the Reverend Mother thy freedom from the priory. If it be granted, thou mayest return hither to this same room and remain shut up in utter solitude, to pray and fast as rigorously as thy body will admit, for the space of fourteen days. If, by that time, thou art come to see truly the magnitude of thy offence, and if thy mind be purified of evil thoughts and thy heart opened to the abounding mercy of God, I will absolve thee of thy sin, and lift away the ban of Heaven. For meseemeth, my daughter, that thy sin found thee out or ever thou hadst reached this house of safety. There is the mark of suffering upon thy brow, and, seeing it, I bow before the power of God, that holdeth over us whithersoever we may go. But see that in thy lonely hours thou find true repentance for thy evil deed. For if that come not, then truly shalt thou be an outcast on the face of the earth. I will go to-day to the priory to talk with the Mère Piteuse, if thy heart accepteth my word.”

Laure fell upon her knees before the Bishop and kissed his hand in token of submission. St. Nazaire suffered her for a few moments to humble herself, and then, lifting her up, he rose himself and quickly left the room.

Eleanore remained a few moments longer with her daughter, and then went away, leaving Laure alone again, to dread the ordeal that was before her, the facing of the assemblage of nuns in that place that she remembered as her heart’s prison.

By order of the Bishop, Laure was left alone all day, and this twenty-four hours was the most wretched that she had to spend after her return to Le Crépuscule. On the following day she went alone to the priory,—not on foot, as the Bishop had at first commanded; for the snow was too deep, and Laure too much exhausted by her privations of the last two months, for her safely to endure the fatigue of such a walk. She rode thither on horseback; and possibly extracted more soul’s good out of the ride than she would have got afoot, for the whole way was laden with bitter memories and grief and shame. The Bishop himself met her at the priory gate, and he remained at her side throughout the time that she was there. The ordeal was not terrible. Mère Piteuse bore out her name, and Laure thought that the spirit of the Saviour had surely descended upon the reverend woman. As an unheard-of concession, the penitent was permitted to recant her vows before only the eight officers of the priory assembled in the chapter-house, instead of before the whole company of nuns in the great church; and thus Laure did not see at all her former companion and abettor, Sœur Eloise, a meeting with whom she had dreaded more than anything else. And when, in the afternoon, Laure finally rode away from the priory gate, it was with a heart throbbing with devotion for St. Nazaire and his goodness to her. Swiftly and eagerly, in the falling twilight, she traversed the road leading back to the Castle, and, when she reached home, night had fallen. Her mother, who had spent the day in the deepest anxiety, was waiting for her in the great hall, and, the moment that Laure entered, weary with the now unusual exercise, she cried out, “It is well? Thou art dismissed?”

And as Laure began to answer the question with a full description of the day, her mother drew her slowly up the stairs, across the hall, and finally into her own narrow room, which was to be the chamber of penance. When they entered there, Laure became suddenly silent; for the little place was dark and chill, and the thought of what was before her struck an added tremor to her heart. Madame read her thoughts and said gently,—

“Be not so sad, dear child. When thou thinkest of the fair, pure, loving life that lies before us, in this Castle of thy youth, surely fourteen little days of peaceful solitude cannot fright thee? Think always that God is on high, and that around thee are those that love thee well; and thus thou canst not be very miserable. Lights and food shall be brought; and then—I bid thee make much of thy solitude, my child; for there is no more healing balm for wounded souls. Now, commending thee to the mercy of the All-merciful, I leave thee.”

In the darkness, Laure clung to her mother as if it were their last embrace, and madame had to put the girl’s hands away before she would bear to be left alone. But at last the door was closed and bolted on the outside; and Laure, within, knew that her imprisonment was begun. Feeling her way to a chair, she seated herself thereon, and laid her head in her hands. Burning and incoherent thoughts hurried through her brain, and she was still lost in these when there was a soft tap at her door, and the outer bolt was drawn. She rose and stumbled hurriedly to open it, but there was no one outside. On the floor was a burning candle, and a tray on which stood a jug of water and a loaf of bread. As she took them in, Laure experienced a wave of desolation. However, she set the food and drink down on her table, lighted the torch on the wall at the candle-flame, and finally sat herself down to eat. No grace to God passed her lips as she took her first bite from the loaf; for her heart was bitter in its weariness. But after she had eaten and drunk she lost the inclination to brood; and, overcome with weariness and the emotions of the day, she hurriedly disrobed, extinguished both her lights, and crept, with her first sense of comfort, into the warmly covered bed. For a long time she lay there, chilly and a little nervous, but thinking of nothing. Then gradually her spirit grew calmer; some of the weariness was done away, and she fell asleep.

When next she woke it was daylight,—a gray, January morning,—and Laure realized, rather disconsolately, that she could sleep no more for the time. Therefore she left her bed, threw a mantle around her, and went to the door, to see if there might be food without. Somewhat to her dismay, she found the door locked fast, and, having no means of knowing what the hour might be, she thought that possibly she had overslept, and that she should have nothing to eat throughout the morning. The heaviness of her head told her that she had slept too long; and, not daring to get back to bed again, she began resignedly to dress. She was in the midst of her toilet when there came a tap at the door, and she flew to open it. Outside stood a kitchen-boy, who handed her a tray containing fresh bread and water, and asked her with formal respect for the stale food of the night before. This she gave him; and immediately the door was shut and rebolted.

_Mother and child were happy to sit all
day in the flower-strewn meadow.—Page 402_
]

With grim precision Laure finished dressing and broke her fast, meantime keeping her thoughts fixed on the most trivial subjects. But when her meal was over, and she knew how long the day must be, and realized that there was no escape from herself, she sat down in the largest chair in the room, let her eyes wander over the familiar objects, and allowed her thoughts to take what form they would. The terrible fatigue of her lonely journey was quite gone now. Nor was there in her own person anything to remind her of her recent suffering. Her body was clean, well-clothed, and warm, and, in her youth, the memory of the past terrible two months grew dim, and instead there rose up before her mental vision a very different picture,—an image,—the image of the idol and the ruin of her life: her joy, her shame, her ecstasy, and her despair; Bertrand Flammecœur, the troubadour, in his matchless, irresponsible untrustworthiness, his incomparable beauty, his fiery enthusiasm. For, strange as it may be, all the bitterness, all the suffering that this man had brought her, had not killed her love for him nor blackened his image in her heart. There being nothing to check her fancy, Laure went mentally back to the hour of her flight with the troubadour, and passed slowly over the whole period of their life together,—from the first days of physical agony and mental shame through the period of increasing delight, to the culmination of her happiness in him and the beginning of its end. Once more she reviewed their journey out of Brittany up the north coast to Calais, whence, in the fair spring weather, they had taken passage to Dover, in England, thence making their way by slow stages to London. Here, in the train of the Duke of Gloucester, uncle of the young Richard, the most powerful man in the kingdom, the two had passed their summer. To Laure it was a summer of fairyland. Flammecœur had become her god, and she saw him ascend height after height of popularity and favor. His nationality and his profession won for him instant recognition, for trouvères from Provence were Persian nightingales to the England of that day. And after his first introduction into high places, his breeding, his dress, and his graceful personality brought him an enviable position, especially among the women of the court. Laure passed always as his wife, and was adroitly exploited among the court gallants. She was still too single-minded to receive the slightest taint from this life. She was found to be as incorruptible as she was pretty, and by this unusual fact her own reputation went up, and her popularity rivalled that of the troubadour. If this manner of life sometimes weighed on her and brought her something of remorse, she found her consolation in the fact that Flammecœur never wavered in his fidelity. For the time being he was thoroughly infatuated with her; and in their stolen hours of golden solitude both of them found their reward for the ofttimes wearisome round of pleasures that, with them, constituted work.

Now, alone, in her solitary prison-room, Laure of Le Crépuscule reviewed her high and holy noon of love, forgetting its subsequence, brooding only over its supreme forgetfulness, till the madness of it was tingling in her every vein, and there rushed over her again, in a tumultuous wave, all that fierce longing, all that hopeless desire, that she thought herself to have endured for the last time. In their early days Flammecœur had been so much her companion, so devoted to her in little, pretty, telling ways, so constant to her and to her alone, that the thought of any life other than the one with him would have been to her like a promise of eternal death. It was not more their hours of delirium than those of silent communion that they had held together, which brought her now the tears of hopeless yearning. All that she desired without him, was death. All that she had loved or cared for was with him.

At this time came to her the thought of Lenore; and she had an instinctive feeling that, had God seen fit to give her that most precious of all gifts, motherhood, this penitential cell had not been the end for her.

Three days and three nights did Laure spend in this state of bitter rebellion against her lot; and then, from over-wishing, came a change. Up to this time, in her new flood of grief for the separation from Flammecœur, she had driven from her mind every creeping memory of the day of his change toward her. Another woman had come upon the horizon of his life: a young and noble Englishwoman, of high station. And soon he was pursuing her with the ardor that he no longer spent on Laure. This lady was one of the first that they had met in England, and Laure had liked her before Flammecœur’s new passion began to develop. But with her first real fears, the poor girl’s jealousy was born, and soon it became the moving spirit of her life. Many times in the ensuing weeks—those bitter weeks of early autumn—did angry words pass between her and her protector, her only shield from the world in this strange land. Once, in a fit of uncontrollable grief and passion, she had left him, and for two days wandered about the streets of London till starvation drove her back to the lodgings of the Flaming-heart. Her reception—of quiet indifference—on her return showed her that her world was in a state of dissolution. For a week she dwelt among its ruins, and then, when she demanded it, he told her that she was no longer dear to him, and he begged her to take what money he had and to set out whither she would, assuring her that she would find no difficulty in securing some excellent abiding-place in this adopted land. Laure took her dismissal heroically. She knew him too well to be horrified at his suggestions as to her procedure; and, refusing his gifts of money, she sold the clothes and ornaments that he had given her in a happier day, and with the proceeds started on her return to Crépuscule. Her little store gave out when she had scarce more than reached France; and the last half of the journey had been accomplished by literally begging her way from hut to hut, never giving up the idea of at last reaching the only refuge she could trust,—the place where now she sat dreaming out her woe.

Through the bitter hours when her old jealousy took possession of her again and seared her with its hot flames, Laure found herself, more than once, gazing fixedly at the little priedieu in the corner of the room, where, as a child, she had been wont to kneel each night and morning. Since the hour she had left the priory, a prayer had scarcely passed her lips; and now, in the time of reactive sorrow, she felt a pride about kneeling in supplication to Him whose laws she had so freely broken. In the course of time, for so doth solitude work changes in the hearts of the most stubborn, the spirit of real repentance of her sin came over her; and then, for the first time in her young life, she wept unselfish tears. It was only inch by inch that she crept back toward the place of heart’s peace. But at length, on the tenth day of her penance, she went to her God; and, throwing herself at the feet of the crucifix, claimed her own from the All-merciful.

Never in her life of prayers had Laure prayed as she prayed now. Now at last God was a living Being, and she was come home to Him for forgiveness and for comfort. Her words sprang from her deepest heart. Tears of joy, not pain, welled up within her; and it seemed as if she felt her purity coming back to her again. She believed that she was received before the throne, and listened to; and no absolution of a consecrated bishop had brought her such confidence as this, her first unlettered prayer.

When she rose from her knees it was as if she had been bathed in spirit. Her old joy of youth was again alive within her and shone forth from her eyes with a radiant softness. A strange quiet took possession of her; a new peace was hidden in her heart; tranquillity reigned about her, and the four days of solitude that remained were all too short. She was learning herself anew; but she dreaded that time when others should look into her face and think to find there what she knew was gone from her forever. After her first prayer she did not often resume the accepted attitude of communication with the Most High; yet she prayed almost continually, with a dreamy fervor peculiar to her state. She still thought of Flammecœur, but no longer with desire; only with a gentle regret for the fever of his soul and that he could never know such peace as hers. She also felt remorse for the part she had played in his life; and this remorse was now her only pain. She suffered under it; but it was easier to endure than the terrible, restless longing that had once consumed her. Indeed, at this time, Laure’s spirituality was exaggerated; for solitude is apt to breed exaggeration in whatever mood the recluse happens to be. But this state was also bound to know its reaction; and, upon the whole, it was as well that the penitential fortnight was near its end.

On the afternoon of the fourteenth day, Laure dressed herself in the somberest robe to be found in her chest,—a loose tunic of rusty black, with mantle of the same, and a rosary around her waist by way of belt. She braided her hair into two long plaits, and bound these round and round her head like a heavy filet. This was all of her coiffure. When she was dressed, she stood in front of her mirror and looked at herself by the smoky light of a torch. Her vanity was not flattered by the reflection; but steel is deceitful sometimes, and Laure did not know how much younger she had grown in the two weeks of her penance. As the hour of liberty approached, she became not a little excited. The thought of being surrounded with such a throng of familiar faces set her aflame with eagerness; and she waited, literally counting the seconds, till she should be set free.

Punctually at the hour in which, two weeks before, Laure had been left alone, her door was opened, and Eleanore and Lenore came together into the room, to lead the prisoner down to the chapel. Madame clasped her warmly by the hand, and looked searchingly into her face: but that was all the salutation that was given, for the ban of excommunication was still upon her. And so, without a word, the three moved quickly to the stairs, and, descending, passed at once into the lighted chapel.

Of all the ceremonies that had been performed in that little room since it was built, more than two centuries before, the one that now took place was perhaps the most impressive, certainly the most unique. Laure, in her penitential garb, presented a curious contrast to the gayly robed Castle company, and to St. Nazaire, in his most gorgeous of canonicals. Yet Laure’s face was more interesting to study than anything else in the crowded room. St. Nazaire, while he confessed and absolved her, watched her with an interest that he had never felt for her before; and he realized that probably never again would he hear such a confession as hers. She told him the whole story of her life after her flight from the priory, with neither break, hesitation, tremor, nor tear. She took her absolution in uplifted silence. And when the ban of excommunication was raised from her, neither the Bishop nor her mother could guess, from her face, what her feeling was.

When she had been blessed, and the general benediction pronounced, all the company came crowding to her to give her welcome. After that followed a great feast, at which Laure ate not a mouthful, and drank nothing but a cup of milk. And finally, when all the merrymaking was through, the young woman returned alone to her room, and, this time with her door bolted from within, lay down upon her bed and wept as if her heart had finally dissolved in tears.

_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_
LENORE

On the morning of the sixteenth of January, Laure went into the spinning-room with the other women, to begin the old, familiar work. The sight of that room brought back to her a peculiar sensation. Long-forgotten memories of her girlhood’s yearnings and restless discontents, half-formed plans and desires, picture after picture of what she had once imagined convent life to be, crowded thick upon her, and caused her to shudder, knowing what these vague dreams had led her to. Here was the room, with its row of wheels and tambour-frames, and, at the end, the big, wooden loom, filled with red warp. Everywhere were little disorderly heaps of flax and uncarded wool, bits of thread and silk, and long woollen remnants clipped from uneven tapestry borders. In a moment this place would be alive with the droning buzz of wheels, the clack-clack of the loom, and the bright chatter of feminine voices. Laure heard it all in the first glance down the room, and in the same instant she lived a lifetime here. Before her eyes was an endless vista of mornings spent in this place upon work that could never keep her thoughts from paths where they should not stray. Alas! with Flammecœur she had neither toiled nor spun.

In neither face nor manner did Laure betray any suggestion of her feeling; and she found herself presently seated at a wheel, between Alixe, who was at the tapestry frame, and Lenore, who had come to the room for the first time in many weeks, and was engaged in fashioning a delicate little garment of white _saie_. Madame, at the head of the room, was embroidering a square of linen and overseeing the work of every one else; and she glanced, every now and then, rather searchingly into her daughter’s face, finding in it, however, nothing that could cause her anxiety; for Laure was ashamed of her own sensations, and strove bravely to conceal them.

Possibly this scene might have held out promise of reward to the thinker, the psychologist, or the humanitarian. Of all these quiet, busy women, was there one whose dull, passionless exterior did not cover an intricate and tumultuous heart-history? The rebellious thought-life of Alixe was no less interesting, despite her inactivity, than the deadening sorrow through which Lenore had passed. Nor had the early life of Eleanore, with its doubtful joys and its bitter periods of loneliness, left any stronger traces in her face than had the long after-years of rigid self-suppression. She had nearly overcome her once devastating habit of self-analysis, by forcing herself to take an unselfish interest in those around her. But the marks of her later and nobler struggles with grief lay as plainly in her face as those of her younger life. Only, the influence of her youth, with its rebellions and its solitudes, was to be found bodily transferred into the character of Laure, who had, in her infancy, absorbed her mother into herself. These four women, by reason either of years or station, had experienced much in the ways of joy and sorrow. But to what depths of unhappiness all the other pathetically colorless lives of the uninstructed and unloved women of that day had sunk, cannot be surmised by any one who has seen what strange courses loneliness and solitude will take. Who knows how great a self-struggle may result only in a pallid, vacant face and a negative personality? And what had they, all these neglected women of the chivalric age, to give them life, color, or force? Men did battle and feats of arms, expecting their ladies to sit at home, to toil and spin and bear them heirs, and, when their time came, haply die. So much we all know. But how much these same women, having something of both soul and brain, may have tried to use them in their small way, who has cared to surmise?

The January morning wore along, and by and by the fitful chatter became more fitful: the pauses grew longer; for every one was weary with work, and with the incessant noise of loom and wheel. Laure, who through the morning had been covertly watching Lenore at her task, saw that the young woman had grown paler than was her wont, and that the shadows under her eyes had deepened till their effect against her pallor was startling. Gradually Lenore’s hands moved more slowly. She would pause for a moment, and then, with a slight start, return to her work with so conscious an effort that Laure was more than once on the point of crying to her to stop. Presently, however, Lenore herself looked toward madame’s chair with an appeal in her eyes and a faintly murmured word on her lips.

Eleanore glanced at her, and then rose at once and went over to her side. “Why didst thou not speak sooner? Go quickly to thy room and lie down. Shall I send Alixe with thee?”

“Nay! Let me rather be alone!” And Lenore, hastily gathering her work into her arms, slipped from her place and was gone from the room.

The little scene caused no comment. Only Laure, who was not accustomed to the sight of Lenore’s transparent skin and almost startling frailty, sat thinking about her after she was gone. How forlorn must be her poor existence! If she had greatly loved Gerault,—and surely any maiden would have loved him,—how gray her world must have become! how without hope her life! Laure lost herself completely in a revery of Lenore’s sorrows, and forgot, for the time, how weary she herself was: how her foot ached with treading the wheel, and how irritated were her finger-tips with the long unaccustomed manipulation of thread. But it came as an intense relief when she heard her mother say softly,—

“Go thou, Laure, to thy sister’s room. Make her comfortable, if thou canst. Take the wheel also with thee and finish thy skein there.”

“Nay, madame. The whirl of the wheel is distressing to Lenore; I saw it while she sat here. I will finish after noon if thou wilt, but Lenore must not be disturbed.”

Madame nodded to her, and Laure slipped away, not noticing how Alixe’s eyes followed her, or what disappointment was written in her face. For hitherto this ministering to Lenore had fallen to Alixe’s share, and it had been the proudest pleasure of her life.

Lenore was lying upon her bed, which, some weeks previously, had been moved over close beside the windows of her room, that she might always have a view of the sea. When Laure entered, she scarcely moved, and her great eyes continued to rove round the room. The new-comer paused in the doorway and gazed at her a moment or two before she asked: “May I enter? May I come and sit beside you?”

Lenore smiled slightly; but there was no actual welcome in her face as she said, in her usual, gentle tone: “Certes. As ever, I was idle and unthinking. Come thou in, Laure, and sit where thou canst gaze out upon the sea. Look, there is a glint of sun on it, even through the folds of the clouds.”

Laure looked to where she pointed, and then came silently over and seated herself in a large chair that stood between the bed and the window, in a little jut in the wall. Her eyes were turned not to the many-paned glass, however, but rather upon the figure of Lenore, who was now looking off through a half-opened pane, through which blew fitful gusts of icy wind. The two young women remained here in silence for some moments, each in her own position, thinking silently. Suddenly, however, Laure shivered, and then sprang to her feet, saying: “Thou’lt surely freeze here! Let me cover thee.” She took up a thick coverlet that lay over the foot of the bed and placed it, folded double, upon Lenore’s form. Then, glancing down into the milk-white face, she said again: “Let me bring thee something—a little food—some wine. Thou’rt so pale—so ill!”

“Peace, Laure! I am comfortable. I lie thus for hours every day. Ah! for how many hours in the past months—”

She looked up into Laure’s face, and the eyes of the two women met, in an unfathomable gaze. Then Laure went slowly back to her place, wishing that she might close the window, but not daring to interfere with her sister’s desired sight of the sea. After she had sat down, Lenore once more lost herself in a reverie, which, however, her companion did not respect.

“Lenore,” she said in a low, rather melancholy voice, “how is it that thou canst endure this life of thine,—thou, young and bright and gay and all unused to this dim dwelling; how hath such existence not already killed thee? Tell me, how hast thou fared since Gerault went?”

Lenore turned her eyes from the sea and fixed them on Laure’s face. She wondered a little why she did not resent the question, not realizing that it was the first throb of natural understanding that had come to her out of Le Crépuscule. Lenore’s first impulse of affection toward her new sister had altered a little in the past two weeks. Since she had heard and understood the story of Laure’s last months, the white-souled girl had shrunk from contact with her whose career lay shrouded in so black a depth. Yet now Laure’s tone, as she spoke, and, more than that, the expression in her eyes, touched a key in Lenore’s nature that had long been unsounded, and which brought a tremor of unwonted feeling to her heart. Quickly repressing the impulse toward tears, she gave a moment’s pause, and then answered in a dreamy, reflective way, as if she were for the first time examining the array of her own emotions,—

“Meseemeth that, since the day of Gerault’s death, a part of me hath been asleep. Save when, on the night of his home-coming, I lay beside his body and touched again his hair and his eyes—”

“Holy God! Thou couldst lie beside the dead!”

“Ah, was it not Gerault come home to me—seeming as if he slept? Since that time, and the night that followed it, I say, I have not wept for him. Mine eyes are dry. There is sometimes a fire in them; but the tears never come. And my heart ofttimes burns, and yet I do not very bitterly grieve. I know not why, but my sorrow hath not been all that I should have made it. I have been soothed with shadows. I have found great comfort in yon rolling sea. And then there is also the child,—Gerault’s son,—the Lord of Crépuscule.”

“Yes, the child! Oh, I know how thou lovest him—I know!”

“Thou knowest? How?”

“Methinks, Lenore, I understand the mother-love. How should I have praised God had he deemed me also worthy of it! But I was not. I know well ’twas a vain desire. But, oh, to hold in mine arms a little one, a babe, and to know it for mine own! Wouldst not deliver up thy soul for that, Lenore?”

Lenore looked at her with a vague little smile. “Perhaps; I do not know. My babe must carry on his father’s name, and so I love him. Yea, I will bear any suffering so that he come into the world; for Gerault said to me long since that such must be my duty and my great joy. He spake somewhat as you do. Yet I know not that eagerness thou speakest of.”

Laure examined the ethereal figure lying before her with new curiosity; and under the gaze of the calm, deep-hued eyes her own were kindled with a brighter gleam. “Hast thou not loved, Lenore?” she asked. “Knowest thou nothing of the joy of living, the two in one, united by divine fire? Dost thou not worship God for the reason that there is now in thee a double soul? Wake! Wake from thy dream-life! Suffer! For out of suffering, great joy will come upon thee!”

As she met Laure’s look, a new light burned in Lenore’s eyes, and the other saw her quiver under those words. Finally, freeing her gaze, she said very softly: “I would not wake. How, indeed, should I live, if I roused myself? Life and love and the world are hidden away behind the far hills of Rennes. Here I must dwell forever in the twilight. So let me dream! Ah, Laure, thou too, thou too wilt come to it. The fever may burn within thee still, but time will cool it. Tell me, Laure,” she added, smitten with a sudden curiosity that was foreign to her usual self, “tell me, Laure, how didst thou find courage to run out from thy dreams in the priory into life with Flammecœur, the trouvère?”

At sound of the name, Laure flushed scarlet, and then turned pale again. “Flammecœur! Flammecœur!” she murmured to herself. Then, suddenly, she shook the spell away. “Ah, how did I fall from heaven to hell and find heaven in hell? I cannot tell thee more than thou thyself hast said. I was buried while I was yet alive; and so I arose from mine own tomb and escaped back to the world of living things. I was among sleepers, yet could not myself sleep. After a time fire, not blood, began to run in my veins. And so, in the end, I rode away with the Flaming-heart. And I loved him! _how_ I loved him! God be merciful to me! Ah, Lenore, how do they put us poor, long-haired things into the fair world, giving us hearts and brains and souls, and thereon bid us all only to spin—to spin, and weave, and so, perchance, kiss, once, and then go back to spin again?”

Laure was half hysterical, but wholly in earnest,—so much in earnest that she had forgotten her companion; and when she looked at her again, she found Lenore lying back on her pillows, her breath coming more rapidly than usual, but her face rigidly calm, her blue eyes wandering through space, and Laure perceived that she had rejected the passionate words and kept herself still in the dream state.

It was well that at this moment there came a tap at the door. Laure cried entrance, and as Alixe came in from the hall, Madame Eleanore appeared from the other door that led to Laure’s room, and thence through to madame’s own chamber. Evidently the work hours were over, and it was time for the noon meal.

Lenore did not care to descend to meat, and she asked Alixe to bring a glass of wine and water and a manchet of bread to her room. This request Alixe joyfully promised to fulfil, and then Laure and her mother together left the room, Laure in the throes of a painful reaction from strong feeling, and with a sense, moreover, that Lenore was relieved to have her go.

In this last conjecture, or rather, sense, Laure was right. But it was not through dislike of her sister that Lenore was glad to be alone again. It was rather because the young widow had been powerfully moved by Laure’s words, and she wanted time and solitude to readjust herself from the new and disquieting ideas that had been put into her mind. Alixe believed her to be fatigued, and perhaps suffering; and, understanding her nature much better than Laure did, she brought the invalid everything that she wanted in the way of food, and then left her, believing that she could sleep.

It was afternoon in the Castle. Dinner was at an end. Madame had betaken herself to her own room, for prayer and meditation. The damsels were all scattered, some to their own small rooms, some to the courtyard and the snow. Laure was in the chapel, before the altar, struggling with her newly roused demon of unrest. In the long room, off the great hall, was Courtoise, seated in Gerault’s old place, before a reading-desk, with an illuminated parchment before him. It was part of “The Romant de la Rose,” and he was reading the passage descriptive of the garden of _Déduit_. Although nothing, perhaps, could be found in the literature of that day better fitted to appeal to a dweller of Le Crépuscule, the mind of the dark-browed Courtoise was not very securely fixed upon his book. His eyes rested steadily on one word; his forehead was puckered, and there was an expression on his face which, had he been a maid, would likely have portended tears. Courtoise was not a man to weep; but he had lately fallen recklessly into the habit of his former lord, of coming here to sit with a parchment before him, as an excuse for brooding hopelessly on the trouble in his soul. His head was now so far bent that he did not see a woman’s figure glide into the room. Not till she stood over his very desk did he look up with a little start: “Thou, Alixe!” he said half impatiently.

“Yea, Alixe, Master Courtoise. Thine eyes, it seems, can make out great shapes very well, but halt an untold time over one curly letter.”

“What sayest thou? Thy words, Alixe, are like the quips of the dwarf; but thou hast not his license to say them.”

“Ahimé, Courtoise,” she came lazily round the table till she stood beside his chair, “seek to quarrel with me if thou wilt. A quarrel would be a merry thing in this Castle. For I am dull—dull—piteously dull, good master!”

Courtoise looked at her rather grimly. “Art thou dull indeed, Mistress Alixe? What thinkest thou, then, of all of us?”

“Thou also, quiet one? Well, I had guessed it. Yet methought—” she paused, with mischief in her eyes; and Courtoise, who knew some of her moods, was wise enough not to let her finish the sentence. Rising from his place, he went and got a tabouret from a corner of the room, and, placing it beside the chair at the desk, sat down on it, motioning Alixe to the seat beside him.

Alixe refused the offer. “Nay, nay, Master Courtoise. Thou shalt sit in the brawny chair, for thou’rt to be my adviser. Sit, I prithee, and let me take the little place, and then list to me carefully while I do talk on a matter of grave importance.”

“Name of Heaven! Is there something of importance in this house of shadows?”

“There is Madame Lenore,” she said soberly.

“Lenore! Ah, ’tis of her thou wouldst speak,” he cried, his whole face lighting.

Suddenly Alixe broke into a rippling mockery of laughter. “There, Courtoise, thou art betrayed! Nay, I will be still about it, for I also love her. Now, to be cruel, my talk is not to be of her, but of myself, even me,—Alixe No-name. Thou, Courtoise, art in something the same position in Le Crépuscule as I, save that thou hast a binding tie of interest here. Then canst thou not offer me a moment’s thought, a moment’s sympathy? For, in very truth, I need them both.”

With Alixe’s first words, Courtoise had flushed an angry scarlet; but with her last, his ordinary color came back to him, and he looked at her in friendly fashion as he answered: “What time and thought I have are thine, Alixe. But thou must show me thy need of sympathy.”

“Why, let it be just for dwelling in Le Crépuscule. And—if thou wouldst have more—for holding no certain place here. There was a time, after Laure had gone away, and when the Seigneur was in Rennes, that I was really wanted. I brought comfort to madame, and I know she loved me well. And also, since Madame Lenore was widowed, I have been sometimes a companion to her. But now there are two daughters here. Madame’s life is full with them; and my place in Le Crépuscule is only one of tolerance. Therefore—lend thine ear closely, Courtoise—I would go away, I, Alixe No-name, out into the world, to see if there be not a fortune hidden for me beyond the eastern hills. I would go to Rennes, or even farther, to try what city life might be; yet I would not have the trouble of explanation and protests and insistence, and finally of farewell, with the dwellers here. Rather, I would just steal away, some night, nor return again hither evermore. What say you, Courtoise? Think you that that wish is all ingratitude?”

It was some moments before Courtoise replied. His face was a little turned from Alixe, but she could see that his brow was knit in thought. At length he answered her: “Nay, Alixe, thy wish is not ingratitude. Rather, indeed, I have sometimes thought that Madame Eleanore showed something of ingratitude toward thee; for thou wast a daughter to her in her sorrow; and since the return of mademoiselle, I have seen thee many a time set aside.

“If thou wouldst fare forth into the world—well, Alixe, the world is a wide place, and many dangers lurk therein. Yet thou art stout of heart, and strong enow in body, and methinks there are few like thee that would of choice dwell in such a place as this. I myself, were it only not for— Ah, well, if thou wouldst go forth and make thy way at once to Rennes, depart not now in the winter season. Thou’dst freeze on thy way. Wait till the spring is upon us, and the woods are light at night. And then—”

“Then thou’lt help me? Wilt thou, Courtoise? Wilt thou tell madame when I am gone wherefore it was I went? Wilt thou give her messages of faithful love? Wilt—”

“Wait, wait! Ask no more than that,” he said, smiling thoughtfully. “When the days are warmer and the spring is in the leaf, when the blood flows fast through the veins, and the head burns with new life—” he drew a sudden, quick breath, and Alixe, looking upon him with new interest, said quickly and softly:

“Then come thou, also, Courtoise, out into the wide world! Let us together go forth to seek our fortunes. Thou’lt find me not too weak a comrade, I promise.”

Courtoise’s smile vanished, and he shook his head, a look of sadness stealing into his eyes: “Think you, Alixe, that after the death of my well-loved lord I should have stayed in this Castle to grow gray and mouldy ere my time, had it not held for me a trust so sacred that I could not give it up?”

“Lenore,” murmured Alixe, gently.

“Thou knowest it. Since the first day that she came home with the Seigneur, I knew that here she would sadly need a friend; and indeed she hath been my very saint. I have worshipped her more as an angel than as a woman, in her purity; and my heart hath all but broken for the great sadness of her life here. And if by remaining I can serve her in any way, in thought or in deed; if it giveth her comfort to have me in the Castle, I would sooner cut off my hand than leave her here alone. I feel also that my lord knoweth that I am faithful to the trust he left with me; and I would not forfeit his dead thanks. Therefore, Alixe, ask me not to return into the world with thee or with another.”

While he spoke, Alixe had watched him fixedly, and had seen no suspicion either in tone or in face of a deeper feeling for Lenore than he had confessed. Now she sighed quietly, and said in a gentle voice: “Courtoise, I think thou shouldst not mourn that thou’rt to dwell here; for thou hast thy trust, and thou hast some one to serve, always. Therefore fear nothing, and give thanks to God; for with Lenore in thy world—”

“Alas, alas, Alixe, there is that fear in me! Should Lenore be lost—should Lenore die—ah!”

Low as was his voice, the agony in it was unmistakable; and now Alixe was sure of all his secret: that he also loved Lenore as man sometimes loves woman,—purely. And she could find no words to say to him when the usually self-contained and tranquil man laid his head down on the table before him and did not try to hide his grief.

It was at this inopportune moment that Laure, tired of prayers, and still consumed by her restless fever, rushed in upon the two in the long room. Her old-time wild gayety was upon her, and she did not pause before the position of Courtoise, who, however, quickly straightened up. Laure scarcely saw it. She knew only that here were the companions of her youth, and as she entered she cried out to them,—

“Alixe! Courtoise! Up and out with me! Burn ye not? Stifle ye not in this dim hole? Courtoise, is our old sailing-boat still in its mooring? Let us fare forth, all three, and set out upon the wintry sea! Let us feel this January wind pull and strain at the ropes! Let us watch the foamy waves pile up before and behind us—”

“Mon Dieu!”

“Mademoiselle, it is impossible. The boat lies on the beach; two days’ work would not fit her for the water.”

Laure stamped angrily on the floor. “Something, then, something! I will get out into the cold, into the snow; I will move, I will feel, I will breathe again!”

It was so much the wild, free Laure, it had in it so much her old-time magnetism of comradeship, so much the spirit of the dead Gerault, desirous of action, that Alixe and Courtoise were drawn irresistibly into her mood. Both of them moved forward, while Alixe cried gayly: “The hawks! Come, we will ride!”

“The hawks!” echoed Laure. “Run, Courtoise, and get the horses, while Alixe and I go don our riding-garb and jess the birds!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, rather with a throb of pleasure, Courtoise ran obediently away toward the stables, while the young women hurried to their rooms. In twenty minutes the wild trio were dashing across the lowered drawbridge, all well mounted, hawk on wrist, spur at heel, with Laure in the lead. Down the road for the space of a mile they went, and then struck off to the snowy moor. They rode long and they rode hard, finding scarce a single quarry, but letting their pent-up spirits out in this free and healthful exercise. When they came in again to the Castle courtyard, it was in starry darkness; and not one of the three but felt a new strength to resist the dead life of the Castle.

Perhaps, had Courtoise known how Lenore had quietly wept away the afternoon in her solitude and loneliness, he had not appeared at evening meat with air so vigorous, eye so bright, and appetite so ready. Lenore, however, was never known to make a plaint; and she came to table with her cheeks hardly paler than usual, though her downcast eyes were shrunken with tears, and their lids were tinged with feverish red.

Men say that it is one of the irrevocable blessings that Time should move as surely as he does. But when the hours, nay, the minutes, lag away as drearily as they did in Le Crépuscule that winter, one feels no gratitude to Time; but rather a resentment that his immortality should be so dead-alive. Yet winter did pass, however slowly. In March the frozen chains of the prisoned earth were riven. Streams began to flow fast and full. The snow melted and soaked into the rich, black soil, making it ready for the seed. The doors of the peasants’ huts were opened to the sun and rain. Flocks of storks began to fly northward on their return from the Nile to their unsettled fatherland. Spring caught the earth in a tender embrace; and wherever her warm breath touched the soil, a flower appeared, to mark the kiss.