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

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

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

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

And on another strip of parchment:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Afterwards, her anxiety lest any question should come up concerning the return of a twenty-first White Lady when but twenty had gone, was completely set at rest by that which had seemed to her old Antony's fortunate mistake in believing herself to have been mistaken.

In recounting the fictitious vision, with an almost uncanny cleverness, Mary Antony had described the Knight, not as he had appeared in the Prioress's cell, in tunic and hose, a simple dress of velvet and cloth, but in full panoply as a Knight-Crusader. The shining armour and the blood-red cross, fully in keeping with the vision, would have precluded the idea of an eye-witness of the actual scene, had such a thought unconsciously suggested itself to the Prioress.

As it was, it seemed beyond question that all the knowledge of Hugh shewn by the old lay-sister, of his person his attitude, his very words, could have come to her by Divine revelation alone. That being so, how could the Prioress presume to doubt the climax of the vision, when our blessèd Lady placed her hand in Hugh's, uttering the wondrous words: "Take her. She hath been ever thine. I have but kept her for thee."

Over and over the Prioress repeated these words; over and over she thanked our Lady for having vouchsafed so explicit a revelation. Yet was she distressed that her inmost spirit failed to respond, acclaiming the words as divine. She knew they must be divine, yet could not feel that they were so.

As dawn crept into the cell, she found herself repeating again and again "A sign, a sign! Thy will was hid from me; yet I accept its revelation through this babe. But I ask a sign which shall speak to mine own heart, also! A sign, a sign!"

She rose and opened wide the casement, not of the oriel window, but of one to the right of the group of the Virgin and child, and near by it.

She was worn out both in mind and body, yet could not bring herself to leave the shrine or to seek her couch.

She remembered the example of that reverend and holy man, Bishop Wulstan. She had lately been reading, in the Chronicles of Florence, the monk of Worcester, how "in his early life, when appointed to be chanter and treasurer of the Church, Wulstan embraced the opportunity of serving God with less restraint, giving himself up to a contemplative life, going into the church day and night to pray and read the Bible. So devoted was he to sacred vigils that not only would he keep himself awake during the night, but day and night also; and when the urgency of nature at last compelled him to sleep, he did not pamper his limbs by resting on a bed or coverings, but would lie down for a short time on one of the benches of the Church, resting his head on the book which he had used for praying or reading."

The Prioress chanced to have read this passage aloud, in the Refectory, two days before.

As she stood in the dawn light, overcome with sleep, yet unwilling to leave her vigil at the shrine, she remembered the example of this greatly revered Bishop of Worcester, "a man of great piety and dovelike simplicity, one beloved of God, and of the people whom he ruled in all things," dead just over a hundred years, yet ever living in the memory of all.

So, remembering his example, the Prioress went to her table, and shutting the clasps of her treasured Gregorian Sacramentary, placed it on the floor before the shrine of the Virgin.

Then, flinging her cloak upon the ground, and a silk covering over the book, she sank down, stretched her weary limbs upon the cloak and laid her head on the Sacramentary, trusting that some of the many sacred prayers therein contained would pass into her mind while she slept.

Yet still her spirit cried: "A sign, a sign! However slight, however small; a sign mine own heart can understand."

Whether she slept a few moments only or an hour, she could not tell. Yet she felt strangely rested, when she was awakened by the sound of a most heavenly song outpoured. It flooded her cell with liquid trills, as of little silver bells.

The Prioress opened her eyes, without stirring.

Sunlight streamed in through the open window; and lo, upon the marble hand of the Madonna, that very hand which, in the vision, had taken hers and placed it within Hugh's, stood Mary Antony's robin, that gay little Knight of the Bloody Vest, pouring forth so wonderful a song of praise, and love, and fulness of joy, that it seemed as if his little ruffling throat must burst with the rush of joyous melody.

The robin sang. Our Lady smiled. The Babe on her knees looked merry.

The Prioress lay watching, not daring to move; her head resting on the Sacramentary.

Then into her mind there came the suggestion of a test—a sign.

"If he fly around the chamber," she whispered, "my place is here. But if he fly straight out into the open, then doth our blessèd Lady bid me also to arise and go."

And, scarce had she so thought, when, with a last triumphant trill of joy, straight from our Lady's hand, like an arrow from the bow, the robin shot through the open casement, and out into the sunny, newly-awakened world beyond.

The Prioress rose, folded her cloak, placed the book back upon the table; then kneeled before the shrine, took off her cross of office, and laid it upon our Lady's hand, from whence the little bird had flown.

Then with bowed head, pale face, hands meekly crossed upon her breast, the Prioress knelt long in prayer.

The breeze of an early summer morn, blew in at the open window, and fanned her cheek.

In the garden without, the robin sang to his mate.

At length the Prioress rose, moving as one who walked in a strange dream, passed into the inner cell, and sought her couch.

The Bishop's prayer had been answered.

The Prioress had been given grace and strength to choose the harder part, believing the harder part to be, in very deed, God's will for her.

And, as she laid her head at last upon the pillow, a prayer from the Gregorian Sacramentary slipped into her mind, calming her to sleep, with its message of overruling power and eternal peace.

Almighty and everlasting God, Who dost govern all things in heaven and earth; Mercifully bear the supplications of Thy people, and grant us Thy peace, all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CHAPTER XXXI
THE CALL OF THE CURLEW

For the last time, the Knight waited in the crypt.

The men-at-arms, having deposited their burden before the altar, leaned each against a pillar, stolid and unobservant, but ready to drop to their knees so soon as the chanting of Vespers should reach the crypt from the choir above.

The man upon the stretcher lay motionless, with bandaged head; yet there was an alert brightness in his eyes, and the turn of his head betokened one who listened. A cloak of dark blue, bordered with silver, covered him, as a pall.

Hugh d'Argent stood in the shadow of a pillar facing the narrow archway in the wall from which the winding stairs led up to the clerestory.

From this position he could also command a view of the steps leading up into the crypt from the underground way, and of the ground to be traversed by the White Ladies as they passed from the steps to the staircase in the wall.

Here the Knight kept his final vigil.

A strange buoyancy possessed him. He seemed to have left his despondence, like a heavy weight, at the bottom of the river. From the moment when, his breath almost exhausted, he had seen and grasped the Bishop's stone, bringing it in triumph to the surface, Hugh had felt sure he would win. Aye, even before Symon had flung the stone; when, in reply to the doubt cast by him on our Lady's smile, the Knight had said: "I keep my trust in prayer," a joyous confidence had then and there awakened within him. He had stretched out the right hand of his withered faith, and lo, it had proved strong and vital.

Yet as, in the heavy silence of the crypt, he heard the turning of the key in the lock, his heart stood still, and every emotion hung suspended, as the first veiled figure—shadowy and ghostlike—moved into view.

It was not she.

The Knight's pulses throbbed again. His heart pounded violently as, keeping their measured distances, nine, ten, eleven, white figures passed.

Then—twelfth: a tall nun, almost her height; yet not she.

Then—thirteenth: Oh, blessèd Virgin! Oh, saints of God! Mora! She, herself. Never could he fail to recognize her carriage, the regal poise of her head. However veiled, however shrouded, he could not be mistaken. It was Mora; and that she should be walking in this central position meant that she might with comparative safety, step aside. Yet, even this–

But, at that moment, passing him, she turned her head, and for an instant her eyes met the eyes of the Knight looking out from the shadows.

Another moment and she had vanished up the winding stairway in the wall.

But that instant was enough. As her eyes met his, Hugh d'Argent knew that his betrothed was once more his own.

His heart ceased pounding; his pulses beat steadily.

The calm of a vast, glad certainty enfolded him; a joy beyond belief. Yet he knew now that he had been sure of it, ever since he came up from the depths of the Severn into the summer sunshine, grasping the white stone.

"I keep my trust in prayer. . . . Give her to me! Give her to me!

Blessèd Virgin, give her to me! 'A sculptured smile'? Nay, my lord.

I keep my trust in prayer!"

The solemn chanting of the monks, stole down from the distant choir.

Vespers had begun.

The Knight strode to the altar, and knelt for some minutes, his hands clasped upon the crossed hilt of his sword.

Then he rose, and spoke in low tones to his men-at-arms.

"When a thrush calls, you will leave the crypt, and guard the entrance from without; allowing none, on any pretext, to pass within. When a blackbird whistles you will return, lift the stretcher, and pass with it, as heretofore, from the Cathedral to the hostel."

Next the Knight, returning to the altar, bent over the bandaged man upon the stretcher.

"Martin," he said, speaking very low, so that his trusted foster-brother alone could hear him. "All is well. Our pilgrimage is about to end, as we have hoped, in a great recovery and restoration. When the call of a curlew sounds, leap from the stretcher, leave the bandages beside it; go to the entrance, guarding it from within; but turn not thy head this way, until a blackbird whistles; upon which lose thyself among the pillars, letting no man see thee, until we have passed out. After which, make thy way out, as best thou canst, and join me at the hostel, entering by the garden and window, without letting thyself be seen in the courtyard."

The keen eyes below the bandage, smiled assent.

Stooping, the Knight lifted the cloak, fastened it to his left shoulder, and drew it around him, holding the greater part of it in many folds in his right hand. Then he moved back into the shadow of the pillar.

Above, the monks sang Nunc Dimittis.

By and by the voices fell silent.

Vespers were over.

Careful, shuffling feet were coming down the stairs within the wall.

One by one the white figures reappeared.

The Knight stood back, rigid, holding his breath.

As each nun stepped from the archway in the wall, on to the floor of the crypt, and moved toward the steps leading down to the subterranean way, she passed from the view of the nun following her, who was still one turn up the staircase. It was upon this the Knight had counted, when he laid his plains.

Six

Seven

Eight

Blessèd Saint Joseph! How slowly they walked!

Nine

Ten

Eleven

The Knight gripped the cloak and moved a step further back into the shadow.

Twelve

Were all the pillars rocking? Was the great new Cathedral coming down upon his head?

Thirteen

The Prioress was beside him in the shadow.

She had stepped aside.

The twelfth White Lady was moving on, her back toward them.

The fourteenth was shuffling down, but had not yet appeared.

Hugh slipped his left arm about the Prioress, holding her close to him; then flung the folds of the cloak completely around her, and over his left shoulder, pressing her head down upon his breast.

Thus they stood, motionless; her face hidden, his eyes bent upon the narrow archway in the wall.

The fourteenth White Lady appeared; evidently noted a wider gap than she expected between herself and the distant figure almost at the steps, and hastened forward.

The fifteenth also hastened.

The sixteenth chanced to have taken the stairs more quickly and, appearing almost immediately, noticed no gap.

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Not one had turned her head in the direction of the pillar. The procession was moving, with stately tread, along its accustomed way.

A delicious sense of security enveloped Hugh d'Argent.

The woman he loved was in his arms; she was his to shield, to guard, to hold for evermore.

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

She had come to him—come to him of her own free will. Holding her thus, he remembered those wondrous moments at the entrance to the crypt. How hard it had been to loose her and leave her. Yet how glad he now was that he had done so.

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

When all these white figures are gone, safely started on their mile-long walk, the door shut and locked behind them—then he will fold back the cloak, turn her sweet face up to his, and lay his lips on hers.

Twenty-five

Praise the holy saints! The last! But what an old ferret!

Yes; Mother Sub-Prioress gave the Knight a moment of alarm. She peered to right and left. Almost she saw the glint of the silver on the blue. Almost, yet not quite.

Sniffing, she passed on, walking as if her feet were angry, each with the other for being before it. She tweaked at her veil, as she turned and descended the steps.

Hugh glowed and thrilled from head to foot.

At last!

Almost–

The sound of a closing door.

Slowly a key turned, grated in the lock, and was withdrawn.

Then—silence.

But at sound of the turning key, the woman in his arms shivered, the slow, cold shudder of a soul in pain; and suddenly he knew that in coming to him she had chosen that which now seemed to her the harder part.

With the first revulsion of feeling occasioned by this knowledge, came a strong impulse to put her from him, to leap down the stairway, force open the heavy door, thrust her into the passage leading to her Nunnery, and shut the door upon her; then go out himself into the world to seek, in one wild search, every possible form of sin and revelry.

But this ungoverned impulse lasted but for the moment in which his passionate joy, recoiling upon himself, struck him a blinding, a bewildering blow.

In ten seconds he had recovered. His arms tightened more securely around her.

She had come to him. Whatever complex emotions might now be stirring within her, this fact was beyond question. Also, she had come of her own free will. The foot which had dared to stamp upon the torn fragments of the Pope's mandate, had, with an equal courage, stepped aside from the way of convention and had brought her within the compass of his arms.

He could not put her from him. She was his to hold and keep. But she was his also to shield and guard; aye, to shield not from outward dangers only, but from anything in himself which might cause her pain or perplexity, thus making more difficult her noble act of self-surrender.

Words spoken by the Bishop, in the banqueting hall, came back to him with fuller significance.

A joy arose within him, deeper far than the rapture of passion; the joy of a faithful patience, of a strong man's mastery over the strongest thing in himself, of a lover's comprehension, by sure instinct, of that which no words, however clear and forcible, could have succeeded in making plain.

His love arose, a kingly thing, crowned by her trust in him.

As he folded back the cloak, he stood with eyes uplifted to the arched roof above his head. And the vision he saw, in the dim pearly light, was a vision of the Madonna in his home.

The shelter of the cloak removed, the Prioress looked around with startled eyes, full of an unspeakable shrinking; then upward to the face of her lover, and saw it transfigured by the light of holy purpose and of a great resolve.

But, even as she looked, he took his arm from about her, stepped a pace forward, leaving her in the shadow, and whistled thrice the Do-it-now call of the thrush.

Instantly the men-at-arms leapt to their feet, and making quickly for the entrance to the Cathedral from the crypt, stood to hold it from without, against all comers.

As their running feet rang on the steps, softly there sounded through the crypt the plaintive call of the curlew.

The man lying upon the stretcher rose, leaving his bandages behind; and, without glancing to right or left, passed quickly in and out amongst the forest of columns, and was lost to view. The entrance he had to guard from within, was out of sight of the altar. To all intents and purposes, the two who still stood motionless in the shadow, were now alone.

Then the Knight turned to the Prioress, took her right hand with his left, and led her forward to the altar.

There he loosed her hand as they knelt side by side; he clasping his upon the crossed hilt of his sword; she crossing hers upon her breast.

Presently the Prioress drew the marriage ring from the third finger of her left hand, and gave it to the Knight.

Divining her desire, he rose, laid the ring upon the altar, then knelt again.

Then rising, he took the ring, kissed it reverently, and slipped it upon the little finger of his own left hand.

The sad eyes of the Prioress, watching him, said to this neither "yea" nor "nay."

Rising she waited meekly to know his will for her. The Knight, the blue cloak over his arm, turned to the stretcher, picked up the bandages, then, spoke, very low, without looking at the Prioress.

"Lay thyself down thereon," he said. "I grieve to ask it of thee, Mora; but there is no other way of taking thee hence, unobserved."

The Prioress took two steps forward, and stood beside the stretcher.

It was many years since she had lain in any human presence. Standing, walking, sitting, kneeling, she had been seen by the nuns; but lying—never.

Though her cross of office and sacred ring were gone, her dignity and authority seemed still to belong to her while she stood, stately and tall, upon her feet.

She hesitated. The apologetic tone the Knight had used, seemed warrant for her hesitancy, and rendered compliance more difficult.

Each moment it became more impossible to place herself upon the stretcher.

"Lie down," said the Knight, sternly.

At the curt word of command, the Prioress shuddered again; but, without a word, she laid herself down upon the stretcher, closing her eyes, and crossing her hands upon her breast. So white she was, so still, so rigid; as Hugh d'Argent, the bandages in his hand, stood looking down upon her, she seemed the marble effigy of a recumbent Prioress, graven upon a tomb; save that, as the Knight looked upon that beautiful, proud face, two burning tears forced their way from beneath the closed lids and rolled helplessly down the pale cheeks.

She did not see the look of tender compunction, of adoring love, in Hugh's eyes.

Her shame, her utter humiliation, seemed complete.

Not when she took off her jewelled cross, and placed it upon our Lady's hand; not when she stepped aside and allowed herself to be hidden by the cloak; not even when she removed her ring and handed it to Hugh, did she cease to be Prioress of the White Ladies of Worcester; but when she laid herself down before the shrine of Saint Oswald, full length upon the stretcher, at her lover's feet.

Hugh stooped, and hid the bandages beside her. He could not bring himself to touch or to disguise that lovely head. Instead, he covered her completely with the cloak; saying, in deep tones of infinite tenderness:

"Our Lady be with thee. It will not be for long."

Then, shrill through the silent crypt, rang the dear call of the blackbird.