through the afternoon and evening the air had been growing sultrier
and sultrier. Not once in England, not even during brazen August,
had she known such a stifling heat. Both her windows stood wide
open; but they seemed to be admitting fiery vapors rather than
life-giving airs. Even the fine linen sheet was too hot and heavy to
be endured. She flung it aside and lay with nothing to cover her
save a plain night-robe of the thinnest Indian silk. At first she
tossed from side to side; but so much exertion soon exhausted her,
and she lay still, gasping for breath.
At length the heat became unendurable. She rose and went to the
window. Two or three miles away, over the woods, over the abbey,
beyond Antonio's farm, the surly Atlantic was growling his muffled
growl through the sultry air. Quite near at hand the shrunken
torrent was rumbling down through the underwoods. Isabel listened.
The airy ocean and the seaward-hurrying brook seemed to invite her,
and to be beckoning her with cool hands. She leaned out, fain to be
a little nearer.
There was no moon, and the stars could not pierce the stagnant
clouds. Yet the night was not solidly dark. The outlines of the
taller trees could be traced against the sky, and the pavement which
surrounded the guest-house glimmered like white limestone.
Isabel was suddenly filled with an overmastering desire to break her
prison walls and to walk free under the open sky. Apart from its
bitter associations she would have lacked courage to visit the pool
and the cascade in the dead of night; for the narrow path thither
wound in and out of somber thickets. But the broad way, broad enough
for a carriage, which ran down from the guest-house to the abbey, and
thence, through the avenue of camellias, to the principal gate had no
terrors for a soul almost untroubled by superstitious fears. It
seemed to the half-stifled, heart-sick Isabel that if she could
escape from the house unheard by Jackson and Mrs. Baxter she might
find life and healing in those ampler spaces. She did not admit to
herself that the broad path and, especially, the paved space in front
of the abbey attracted her because they were rich in unembittered
memories of hours with Antonio. Room, more room; air, more air: she
thought she wanted nothing besides.
Having dressed herself swiftly in her lightest garments she threw
over her hair a black lace mantilla which she had bought in Oporto,
thrust her shoes and stockings into her little bag and crept barefoot
to the door. It creaked a little when she closed it behind her; but
the steady sequence of sounds which continued to come from the
bedroom of Mrs. Baxter proved that the Excellent Creature had heard
nothing. Isabel turned away with a shrug of distaste, and descended
the stairs. There was no need to listen for the snoring of Jackson,
who could have gone on sleeping restfully if she had clattered about
the corridor in clogs.
The two bolts of the front door were not very hard to draw back, and
the latch was easily lifted. On the top step, where she had talked
thrice with Antonio, Isabel drew on her stockings and shoes. Then
she closed the door behind her, latched it softly, and stole on
tiptoe out of earshot down the path.
It was not much cooler in the open than in her chamber. Still, she
was glad that she had exchanged her narrow cell for freedom.
Besides, the far-stretching woods and the vast heavens were more in
scale with her immeasurable sorrow. She walked on quickly, eager to
hasten away from her hateful prison. The path was cheerful because
it led down to the open lowlands and the refreshing sea.
Midnight, to Isabel's mind, usually held no more terrors than
noonday. But when a vague shape confronted her under a tree she
started violently. Some gossip of Joanninha's awoke in her
memory--some ridiculous village story about a ghostly monk who
haunted the domain on dark nights. Advancing boldly upon it she
found that the vague shape was only a dead trunk clothed in creepers.
She tried to laugh; but the laugh would not come, and suddenly she
knew what was meant by fear.
Her instinct was to turn and run home. But the path behind her,
backed by the enormous mass of the mountain, looked like a tunnel
bored through coal, while the path ahead of her led towards Antonio
and José, towards the soft lights and faint voices of the sea.
Daring neither to go back nor to stand still, she hurried on until
her foot struck a slab of stone.
She had reached the paved space in front of the abbey. The western
gable of the chapel hulked up high into the gloom, like the poop of a
man-o'-war aground. Upon the warm stone steps, with her back to the
door, she sat down until she had regained all her breath and lost
nearly all her fears. Isabel saw no reason why she should not sit
there until dawn. She hid her face in her hands, and tried to sleep.
A growling in the east aroused her. It was no louder than the
Atlantic's growling in the west. Isabel knew that it was thunder;
but it seemed to be so far away that she was not alarmed. What
surprised her was its long protraction. Unlike the intermittent din
of an English thunderstorm it rumbled on unceasingly, until Isabel
could almost have believed that she was listening to the echoes of an
Armageddon raging among the burnt, far-off hills of Spain. Suddenly,
however, a blaze of lightning showed her the terrified Atlantic's
ashen face. She had never dreamed of such lightning before. Flash
trod upon flash so eagerly that there was a continuous dance of
light. The half-seconds of dimness between seemed more positive than
the lightning. They were like the convulsive twitchings of a great
eyelid over a terrible eye; and Isabel thought she saw flashes of
darkness rather than flashes of light.
From the neighborhood of the stepping-stones came a shattering noise,
as sharp as a pistol-shot and as loud as an exploding magazine.
Immediately, afterwards, as if obeying a preconcerted signal, a
fearful cannonading and fusillading began to rage on every hand.
Armageddon had swept westward.
Isabel sprang up and huddled back into the scanty shelter of the
shallow doorway. So long as there was no rain she welcomed the
gigantic grandeur of the thunder, and the cold, pitiless beauty of
the lightning. But the rain's herald did not delay to blow his
blast. Isabel could not see them; but she felt a swirl of dust and
dead leaves rush past her in obedience to his command. Gritty atoms
clung to her lips. At the same moment ten thousand trees began to
rock and moan in pain; and a warm drop fell upon Isabel's hand.
Down rushed the rain. At first it struck straight down from heaven,
but, after a few seconds, it smote the wood slantwise, like millions
of thin javelins hurled from a height. The thunder never ceased
crackling, banging, booming; and the lightnings were so bright that
the tree-trunks stood like smoke-blackened men wielding brilliant
scimitars amidst the flying javelins.
Isabel was greedily watching the strife when the wind veered, and a
battery of rain discharged its whole broadside full at her face. The
gust lasted only a moment; but, when it had passed, her thin
dinner-dress was wet all over. She knew that there would be fifty
gusts all as bad as the first or worse, and that she must either
enter the chapel or be drenched to the skin.
She drew the key from her bag. The lightnings served her for a
lantern as she drove the steel into the keyhole; but before she could
turn it in the lock another burst of cold rain smacked rudely at her
bare shoulders. At length she pushed back the door. The lightnings
seemed to leap into the chapel the moment she opened it, like a pack
of eager dogs rushing in before their master. Swifter than
greyhounds the cold white-and-blue radiance flashed over the cold
white-and-blue of the azulejos, and then licked back into the dark.
In her retreat from the rain Isabel had forgotten supernatural
terrors. But as soon as she was fairly over the threshold
Joanninha's ghost-story rushed anew into her mind, and she was
thankful for the lightnings which had shown her that the place was
empty. Yet she dared not shut herself up in the chapel; so she
resolved to stand just inside.
Without any warning a third gust sucked the great door out of her
weak hand. The oak fell to, with a bang, which was nearly drowned in
a sharp clap of thunder. Isabel leaped back to reopen it, and tugged
at the handle with all her might. But the bolts and springs of the
lock had done their work. And the key was outside.
Isabel did not lose her head. As soon as she had recovered from the
first shock, the good blood of her old English stock thrilled in her
veins. Here was an adventure. Antonio instantly flew into her
thoughts, as usual. To-morrow she would meet Antonio. To-morrow she
would tell him, this contemptuous Antonio, how she had passed a night
of thunder and lightning in a haunted chapel. To-morrow Antonio
should be made to realize what sort of a woman he was flouting.
To-morrow Antonio would hang his head at the thought of his dull,
superstitious, spiritless Portuguese bride.
Propping herself against the wall she took stock of the situation.
The chapel was dry; and although her dress was wet it was not wet
enough to give her a cold. In four or five hours it would be
daylight, and she would have courage to find the spiral staircase.
Once on the flat roof of the cloister she would be able to see
Jackson and the other servants searching for her. Jackson and the
servants and Antonio. They would be sure to send first thing for
Antonio.
The warmth with which she pictured Antonio's arrival ebbed away when
she suddenly remembered that she was leaning against the
blue-and-white tile-painting of the Saint's death at Tyburn. With a
little shiver she crossed over to the azulejos representing the
Saint's birth. Meanwhile, the rain was still lashing the glass, and
the thunder was making a din like the toppling of crags into cañons.
What troubled her most was the jeweled crown on the head of the image
above the altar. The bluish-white lightning seemed to have an
affinity for the bluish-white stones, and several times Isabel felt
sure that the brilliance lingered among the points of the diadem
after it had fled from the rest of the chapel.
Once she could have sworn that some one entered through the cloister
doorway, and that footsteps sounded upon the pavement; but the
thunder was loud at the time, and she decided that she had only heard
its reverberations. None the less, the fright weakened her nerve.
All in a moment she felt weary, chilly, hungry, and so utterly
miserable that she nearly cried. She pulled herself up in time and
tried to brace up her nerves by chewing the bitter bark of irony.
"This is one of my lucky days," she said to herself. "From this
morning onward it has been wholly delightful. What a good grateful
girl I ought to be!"
An ear-splitting clap of thunder put an end to her soliloquy. So
awful was the crash that Isabel listened shuddering for the noise of
falling walls and roofs. Not one stone or slate gave way; but she
heard a sound a thousand times more fearful. It was a voice, a
mumbling voice which seemed to prolong the worn-out rumblings of the
thunder; a voice deep and rich; the voice of a man; a voice somewhere
in the chapel.
Her heart nearly stopped beating. She strained terrified eyes into
the furthest darkness. And she did not strain them in vain. In
close succession four or five white beams of lightning lit up the
choir.
A monk, in black, was kneeling before the altar.
Isabel's piercing scream was louder than the thunder and the rain.
She collapsed in a heap on the pavement. But she did not swoon.
Struggling to her feet she dashed herself desperately against the
massive door. It stood like a rock. Moaning wildly, she dragged at
the lock with both hands. It did not yield a hair's-breadth. A
moment later she heard footsteps; and turning round she had one
lightning vision of the black monk hurrying towards her. She
shrieked again and made a dash in the direction of the cloister
doorway. Before she could reach it another white flash showed her
the black monk only an arm's length away. As the flash passed she
struck a mad blow into the darkness and, hitting nothing, she
stumbled and fell forward. But two strong, unghostly arms caught her
just in time; and instead of striking the cold stones she found
herself upheld by something soft and warm.
Without waiting for the lightning to reveal his face, Isabel knew
that she was in the arms of Antonio. Never in her life before had
she yielded to any man's caress, save the rare and shamefaced kisses
of her father. Yet Antonio's arms seemed to be her natural place,
like its nest to a bird. For a few seconds she did not think of
identifying the black monk. She believed that the black monk had
been on the point of striking her dead, and that some grand magic of
love had conjured up Antonio to stand between them in the nick of
time. Trembling like a leaf and panting like a runner after a race,
she pressed and clung to him, as a terrified child clings to its
mother in the dark.
"You are Isabel?" said Antonio. He had known from her first scream
that it was she; but he thought it might comfort her to hear his
voice speaking her name.
"Yes. I am Isabel," she murmured. And although a sharp memory of
the plighted Bride bade her banish herself at once from his clasp she
abandoned herself more than before to the warmth and softness of his
gentle strength.
"You are safe, quite safe," he said; for she was still trembling all
over. "There is no ghost. It was only I."
No ghost? Only he? What did it mean? Isabel roused her deliciously
drowsing wits. No ghost. Only he. She opened her eyes. But the
chapel was filled full with darkness, and she could not see his face.
A moment afterwards a prolonged blazing of huge lightnings made the
place brighter than day. The azulejos, the high windows, and the
gilded carvings shone out like blue and white and yellow fires.
Isabel could see Antonio's anxious eyes gazing down into her own.
And she had time to see much more. She saw his Benedictine habit;
she saw that he and the black monk were one and the same man.
She leaped away from him in terror. But terror did not endure. At
the touch of his reassuring hand seeking her arm in the gloom, a
light as bright as the lightning's blazed within her and a
thunderbolt of overwhelming joy swept her off her feet. With a great
cry of gladness she flung herself once more against his breast.
"It's true, it's really true?" she clamored. "Speak. Answer me at
once. You're not deceiving me? Your Bride is not a real woman after
all?"
"You have surprised my secret, and I trust you to keep it," he
answered. "When the monks were here they knew me as Father Antonio."
"Antonio, Antonio, Antonio--what a beautiful name!" she cried.
"Come, Father Antonio, tell me. Your Bride is only Religion, or the
Church, or the Virgin, or something like that?"
Her tone dismayed the monk even more than her words shocked him; and
he remained silent.
"You cannot deny it," she exulted. Another flash of lightning
silenced her; but the radiant eyes and glowing cheeks on which it
shone were more eloquent than her words. And as soon as the swift
darkness closed over them her words rang in it like New Year's bells
at midnight. "You don't deny it, you can't, you daren't," she sang.
"Your Bride is all a mere sentiment, like the azulejos; a romance; an
ideal."
"First of all," demanded Antonio, "how did you come here to-night?"
"God sent me. I believe there's a God, at last."
He moved a little, so as to loosen her clasp. But, in her almost
hysterical rapture, she did not perceive the movement.
"You are wet through," he said. But she only answered:
"What does it matter?"
"Quick!" he commanded. "There is a lull in the rain. You must go
home this moment."
"I won't," said she. "We will stay here."
"Isabel," he retorted sternly, "we will not stay here. You are mad.
The storm has driven you out of your senses. Or perhaps it was the
ghost you thought you saw. You must go home this instant. What if
you have been missed? What if your servants should find us here?
What will Mrs. Baxter say? And what shall I say to your father?"
Until he spoke his last sentence Isabel heard him unmoved; but at the
thought of her father the arms which held Antonio weakened. Very
slowly she let him go. None the less, she sought to argue. The
monk, however, enforced his will. Gripping her arm he marched her
almost roughly to the west door, and fumbled for the lock.
"It's no use," she said. "The key is outside. We must stay here."
His only answer was to take her arm again and to lead her through the
smaller doorway into the cloister. At the moment of their emerging
from the chapel a shaft of lightning lit up a bubbling lake of muddy
water, under which lay drowned the cloister garden. Two sides of the
cloister itself were also under water.
"I am frightened," she said, with genuine fear, as Antonio drew her
into a gloomy corridor. He could feel her shrinking back and
trembling; so he threw his arm around her waist and hurried her on.
As they passed through the kitchen the uproar of the torrent reminded
Antonio of the night of his fight with José. But he did not pause.
He threaded passage after passage, room after room, until he had
worked round to the little door with the Reading monk's secret lock.
His fingers searched among the hidden levers, and at last the door
stood open.
Frequent lightning still swept sea and land; but the thunder had
dragged its great guns northward and was pounding over Navares. The
rain had ceased. The monk, however, did not hurry Isabel over the
threshold; for the overarching trees were pouring down water like an
aqueduct cracked by an earthquake. He considered earnestly.
"Come," he said, with an abruptness which startled her. "I must wrap
you in this cloak."
With much tucking and folding he contrived to wrap his habit about
her slender body and to adjust the mantilla over her fragrant hair.
"Now, I suppose, I'm a nun," she laughed.
The speech would have stung him had he not remembered her behavior in
his cell, twelve days before, and her evident persuasion that monks
and nuns were only picturesque archaisms, with no serious existence
outside the pages of novelists and the dreams of pious
sentimentalists. But he did not give her time to expand her
flippancy.
"Let us go," he said.
They went. For about twenty paces the paved causeway which led to
the little door gave them dry foothold. Thenceforward, however, the
paths to the guest-house had become rushing streams. Even without
the aid of the lightning one could see gleaming water everywhere.
Isabel glanced down dolefully at her feet.
"We can't," she said.
"We must," he insisted.
"Look at my shoes," she moaned.
Antonio considered again. Then he asked:
"You will let me carry you?"
"If we can't wait," she answered, after a long pause, "and if you're
sure there's no other way ... you may carry me."
He stepped down from the causeway and bent his back so that she could
seat herself upon his shoulder.
"You must hold fast," he said.
Very shyly she slipped round his neck a soft arm which trembled.
Antonio straightened himself up and plashed forward. Once or twice
he came to dips in the path where the water was higher than his
knees, but the young giant stamped through the whirlpools like
another Saint Christopher. On they went, guided by the flickering
lightning. At length they reached the main path. It was hardly
ankle deep in water. He quickened his pace, until the guest-house
loomed in sight. Then he gently set Isabel down on a boulder away
from the drip of the trees and released her from the clumsy habit,
which he folded up and laid on another great stone.
"You left the door unlocked?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"For Heaven's sake don't speak so loud. Better still, don't speak at
all. I'm going to carry you as softly as I can to the steps. Don't
breathe a word on the way. And don't open the door until I am back
under the trees. I shall wait to see that you are safe. Now!"
"No, no, not yet," she whispered.
"Yes. Now. This moment. You are mad."
"I know. But, Antonio, promise. To-morrow morning. At the cascade."
"I promise," he said.
Once more he lifted her up: but this time, as the distance was so
short, he carried her in his arms like a child. He did not look at
her; but he knew that she was strangely light with a fairy lightness,
that her shoulders were snow and her hair pure gold, and that she was
as fine and delicate as a lily. Before he took his first stride
towards the guest-house he paused, straining his ears for any sound
within. Around him, in the woods, a hundred little streams went
bubbling and tinkling. Here and there thankful birds were piping
their peace-pipes after the din of the battle. The chant of the
Atlantic, freshened by the breeze, was loud and glad.
"Listen, Antonio," she murmured. "All the world is singing."
Gripping her as if he would choke her next words before she could
speak them, the monk crossed the path. Twelve strides sufficed him
for their journey. At the foot of the steps he put her down; and,
before she could whisper Good-night, he was speeding noiselessly back
to the great stone.
As soon as she had entered the guest-house and closed the door he
made haste to put on his habit; for the air had grown cold. Then he
shrank into the dripping trees and waited. By this time the clouds
were gone and the stars were shining.
Isabel appeared at the window and beckoned imperiously. He stole
softly forward and saw her hand moving like a white butterfly among
the creepers clustering round the casement. She broke off a
half-blown rose which had not been shattered by the storm and threw
it to Antonio. He caught it deftly; but his fingers closed too
tightly on its thorns, and when he re-entered the abbey to exchange
his habit for his old cloak he saw that the white flower was flecked
and veined with blood.
VII
It was Isabel who arrived first at the pool. She found the
stepping-stones impassable. A cypress had been struck by lightning,
and the wind and rain had torn millions of autumn leaves from the
other trees. But the storm was over, the mists and stifling heats
were gone, and the clear sunshine was tempered by a pleasant breeze.
When Antonio joined her the roar of the swollen cataract was so
enormous that he had almost to shout in her ear.
"We must go somewhere else," he said. "Here we can't hear ourselves
speak. And the ground is too wet. Come."
She followed as he led the way up the mountain. Reaching a point
where the torrent was pent within a resounding gorge they leaped
easily to the other side. Then they descended, slanting away from
the water, until they came to a stone platform which supported a
small ruinous chapel. It was one of the oldest shrines in the
domain; but Antonio could not remember the time when it had contained
an image or an altar.
"You have hurt your hand," she said. "What has cut it?"
"The thorns of a rose," he answered quietly.
His curtness disappointed Isabel. After her painful experience of
his perverse obstinacy the morning before, she could not expect him
to be converted from his folly or cured of his religious mania all in
a moment, and she had come prepared for vigorous debate. But his
cold self-possession and, above all, his avoidance of her eyes,
dismayed her.
"Of course, you've thrown the rose away?" she asked.
"No, I have not thrown it away."
"Why?"
He spread his cloak on a carved stone bench for her to sit on, and
did not answer.
"Why?" she repeated. "I want Father Antonio to explain. Are monks
allowed to treasure up dead flowers? You'll be asking next for a
tress of my hair."
He maintained his grim silence. Embarrassment and injured pride
colored her cheeks a warm red; but she was determined to make him
speak.
"I mean," she added, "that you won't ask for a lock of my hair at
all. You'll expect me to go down in the dust and offer it you on my
knees, and to coax you and implore you for days and days until you
condescend to accept it. Your Majesty is a true Lord of Creation.
He leaves me to do all the wooing."
This time Antonio looked at her fairly and squarely. She sat down
and faced him with a pout on her lips and a toss of the head. In her
heart she felt sure of victory; and she yearned to get over the
preliminary skirmishes as soon as possible.
"Begin, your Reverence," she said. "Preach at me. Excommunicate me.
Do your worst. I am ready."
"Ought I to begin," he asked, "by craving pardon for trespassing last
night in the chapel?"
"No, you ought not. It wouldn't be sincere; because you believe the
chapel is more yours than mine. And, most decidedly, you oughtn't to
begin as if we are mortal enemies. Why are your tones as sharp and
cold as icicles? And why do you glare at me as if you hate me?"
"I hate nobody," he replied. "But I hate this talk which we are
compelled to have."
"Then let us make haste and be done with it. Explain. I want to
know why you pretend to be still a monk, when you're really a farmer?"
"I pretend nothing," said Antonio firmly. "You will keep my secret.
You will not name it even to your father. Above all, you will hide
it from your servants, and from the chief of the Villa Branca
Fazenda. I am, and I shall be till I die, a monk of the Order of
Saint Benedict."
"Monks have been abolished in Portugal for years and years," she
objected.
"You mean that monks have been exiled and monasteries suppressed.
Monks cannot be abolished. Men can pull down blinds and put up
shutters and sit in darkness; but they cannot abolish the sun."
"Choose some other illustration," she begged. "Surely it is monks
who put up shutters and draw down blinds and shut out the light."
She proceeded to rattle off half a dozen well-worn objections to the
monastic life. Her words were her own; but underneath their
freshness and liveliness Antonio recognized the stock tirade against
monks and nuns which he had heard twenty times in England. He
listened patiently till she had finished. Then he said:
"We are not thinking of the same thing. Such monks and nuns as you
are scorning do not exist. They are figments of your
controversialists. They are stuffed figures, set up like skittles to
be knocked down again. May I speak quite candidly?"
"Speak quite candidly, or do not speak at all," she answered.
"And personally?"
"The more personally the better."
"Then listen. You remember our first Wednesday--the day you and I
and young Crowberry went all through the monastery?"
"You mean the day you brought me the little blue bird with the
orange-colored tail?"
"You remember," continued Antonio, "how I showed you a monk's cell.
That cell was mine. I lived in it for seven years. You pulled open
all the drawers and looked inside the cupboard."
Isabel flushed crimson, and demanded indignantly:
"How did I know it was yours?"
"You didn't know it was mine," he answered gently. "Still, it was
certainly somebody's. For a moment, as you peeped and rummaged, I
was distressed and disappointed. How could I reconcile it with your
delicacy? But I soon found the answer. I understood that you
thought of monks as you might think of your British Druids or of the
Crusaders or of the Incas of Peru or of the Andalusian Moors--men
that have lived and breathed once, men that were picturesque, men
that figure well in romances, but, most of all, men that are utterly
dead and gone and done with. Perhaps it is natural for you so to
think. Your England has been without monks, save in holes and
corners, for three hundred years."
She was on the point of asking what all this might be leading to,
when he added:
"Again, last night, when I wrapped you in my habit, you laughed and
said: 'Now I suppose I am a nun.' You no more intended to make fun
of holy things than a bird intends sacrilege when it darts into a
church and knocks down candles and vases with its wings. But you
said it, all the same."
"I don't deny saying it," she retorted; "I know perfectly well that I
am coarse and wicked enough to say anything."
"I am not blaming you, Isabel," he said gently. "You are not coarse
and you are not wicked. We are at variance on the greatest of
issues; but may God forbid that we should quarrel."
The softness with which he spoke her name disarmed Isabel; and the
fountains of lovingkindness which overbrimmed his words quenched the
fire of wrath in her breast. To make sure that he was forgiven
Antonio gazed at her with eyes so full of the old searching
tenderness that a lump rose in her throat, and she looked away.
"No, I am not blaming you, Isabel," he continued. What I mean is
this. You find it impossible to take all these things seriously.
You think I enjoy dressing up in a monk's cowl and reciting a monk's
Latin Office in a monk's stall, pretty much as other men enjoy
putting on crowns and ermine and going to masques as princes and
kings. You don't see that the mere cowl is very little more than
nothing, and that a monk's faith and hope and love are nearly
everything. You cried out in the chapel last night: 'So your Bride
is only Religion, or only the Church, or only the Virgin.' Yes
'Only.' You said 'only.' And I am not quibbling on a mere word.
You meant that a mortal bride--such a bride, for example, as
Margarida--would be more real, more important, more entitled to my
lifelong loyalty."
He ceased. After pondering a little she raised her eyes and said:
"In the main you are right. I'm afraid my vague notions of monks are
not worth the trouble; but you have analyzed them correctly. In
England we have some people who want to revive medieval tournaments
with mailed men and horses, and lists, and queens of beauty, all
complete. To me a modern monastery is practically the same thing,
except that it's less interesting and more useless."
"I do not know enough of your mind," he said slowly. "After all,
monasticism is not the whole of the Church. The Church is wider and
older than her religious orders. Do you object only to monasticism
in particular? Or are you equally impatient of the Church in
general?"
"By the Church," she answered, "no doubt you mean Roman Catholicism.
If so, I'm not a fair judge. I was educated with a bias against it,
and I am gradually finding out that I was taught a great deal which
was unfair and much that was untrue. But I will answer you as
frankly as possible. Don't be hurt. I love the Church as I love a
ruin in a landscape; but I should not love her if somebody should
accomplish the impossible, and put her in a thorough state of repair."
Springing up she stepped to the tumbledown shrine and laid her hands
on the mossy shafts of its ivy-hung portal.
"Be honest," she said. "Is not this little chapel far more beautiful
in decay than ever it was when the roof didn't leak and these
creepers were not allowed to twine about it? If I could wave a wand
and bid every beauty-spot of moss vanish from the walls and make all
the stones dead-white and all the angels sharp and true, would you
love it as you do now? And it's the same, the very same, with the
Church. When she was mistress of Europe, she was gaunt and hard and
repellent. But she is marvelously picturesque in her decay. I don't
know what our poets and painters and romancers would do without her."
"I still read English papers, and I know what you mean," said
Antonio. "There is a fashion growing up among your poets of making
free with the holiest things. They affect the reverence and
simplicity of medieval believers when, in reality, they are robbing
altars and looting sacristies to fill a property-box with theatrical
properties. Chalices, censers, copes, chasubles, dalmatics, miters,
pyxes; bishops, abbots, nuns, monks, friars, acolytes; crypts,
stained glass, pointed arches, carven canopies--I see that all these
are no more to them than stage backgrounds, stage puppets, stage
dresses, stage tricks."
"It makes the poems and paintings much more gorgeous, anyhow," she
interrupted.
"No doubt," said Antonio sternly. "Just as the palaces and harems of
the Turks were more gorgeous after they had sacked the Holy Places.
Let the Church be persecuted more than ever in your country, and I do
not fear for her; but I tremble at the thought of your cleverest men
taking her name in vain and praising her with their lips, while they
are still obstinate pagans in their hearts and lives. Out of such
blasphemy I foresee the birth of monstrous sins."
"Until this morning," retorted Isabel, grievously disappointed in
him, "I thought you were no worse than over-pious, and a little
over-sentimental about your religious memories. I could never have
believed that you would be bigoted and narrow-minded. Your prophecy
only makes me shudder. I repeat that the beautiful decay of the
Church is bringing more beauty into art; and I believe that more
beauty in art will bring more beauty into life. Yet you say it will
give birth to monstrous sins."
For a long time Antonio did not reply. When he spoke his tone was so
much altered that Isabel thought he accepted his defeat in argument.
"Look at this," he said, pointing to a stone which lay near his foot.
It had been a gargoyle on the shrine, but must have fallen to the
ground before Antonio was born. Even if the shallow carving had not
been almost rubbed away by the hand of time Isabel could hardly have
made out its outlines through the silken mosses and tiny ivies which
covered it.
"It was part of the shrine once," he said. "I admit it looks more
beautiful broken off and lying here in decay. I've never noticed it
before. It ought to be in the porch. It isn't heavy. Will you help
me to carry it?"
They stooped down together. The unclouded sun had already dried both
the gargoyle and its mossage and leafage. Isabel took her fair share
of the work, and between them they easily lifted the stone from the
ground. But they had not borne it twenty inches towards the shrine
before she let go and sprang clear, with a scream. The gargoyle
struck upon a knob of rock and smashed into three pieces.
Antonio's glance followed Isabel's. She was gazing with horror at
the long black grave from which they had wrenched the stone. It was
a nest of centipedes. The creatures writhed this way and that, like
the letter S, incalculably multiplied and gone mad. Some of them
were bright scarlet, some were sickly yellow. Beyond them, half of a
long worm, bald and clammy, lay across the slimy track of some hidden
slug. A scurrying ear-wig touched it, and the worm disappeared as if
by magic into the earth. Meanwhile two horny beetles were
shouldering their way through the stubby grass.
The monk had hardly realized the success of his too vivid allegory
when he saw that Isabel had snatched up her skirts and fled. He
grabbed his cloak and leaped after her; but although he was almost
immediately at her side, she continued her flight without recognizing
his existence. After two or three minutes a swollen tributary of the
torrent brought her to a halt.
"I am so sorry," he said, very humbly. "I never thought it could be
so horrible as that."
"You're sorry too late," she cried. "I know you love me; yet you're
always acting as if you despise me. It's your chief delight to
humiliate me. Religion ruins you. Till we get to religion your
heart is tenderer than a woman's; but, when religion comes in, I
believe you'd burn me at the stake and feel proud of it."
Great tears came into her eyes; but before he saw them he had already
recognized how thoughtless and unkind he had been in luring her to
lift the gargoyle. The sight of the tears completed his repentance.
"With my whole heart I ask pardon," he pleaded, "although what I did
was almost unpardonable. I didn't think; but it was selfish and
brutal to score a point like that. Isabel, try to forgive me."
Whenever he spoke her name and looked into her eyes she became as
clay in his hands. But Antonio did not know it. He took her silence
to mean anything but pardon; and therefore his tone was humbler than
ever as he added:
"We cannot part like this, Isabel. These rocks are dry and warm to
your feet. We shall find no better spot."
He spread his cloak for her once more, and sat down at her side. Two
or three minutes passed without a word. Then she said:
"If I am all wrong about monks, I am willing to be put right. What
are monks for? Why do they exist?"
Antonio hesitated. There were so many gaps in her knowledge and in
her sympathy. How could he explain the topmost flowering of churchly
life to one who knew so little of the root and the trunk and the
branches? At last he replied:
"You have spoken of painters and writers. Is it not true that both
painting and writing have advanced almost entirely through the
diligence of professional writers and painters? How soon the amateur
slips back without the example of the professional to steady him! In
our wars we have always found that a few professional soldiers can
stiffen citizen levies who would otherwise run away. Monks, so to
speak, are the professional Christians, devoting their lives to piety
and the pursuit of perfection. I don't mean that they are
professional like your English clergy. Monks are not professional
shepherds. I might say that they are professional sheep, a
professional flock, exemplifying, as Christians in the world can
hardly do, blamelessness, simplicity, and obedience at every moment
to their divine Shepherd's voice."
He paused; but Isabel made no comment.
"In comparing monks with professionals," he said uneasily, "I know I
am putting it on rather a low level."
"So I thought," she said. And with a leap of his heart, he
understood that she was not outside the range of Christian
spirituality.
"Then we will put it higher," he continued eagerly. "Grant for a
moment that Christianity is true. Grant that the everlasting God,
Who carved these hills and poured out yonder Atlantic, once
imprisoned Himself in space and time and became a mortal man. Grant
that before He died for us, He begged for our lifelong love and
trust, and for our daily praise and prayer, and good deeds and
obedience and self-denial. Grant that He told us how this present
life of ours is only a short road leading into a boundless life to
come. For the moment you will grant all this?"
She bowed her head.
"Granting it, what do we find?" he asked. "We find the vast majority
of men and women, including those who profess to believe His words,
living for themselves instead of for Him. 'Seven times in a day have
I sung praises unto Thee,' said the Psalmist, who died so long before
our Lord was born; yet millions of Christians do not truly praise God
seven times in their lives. They rarely think of Him save in time of
trouble or in the hour of death. The monk is a man who throws all
his poor weight into the other scale, striving to redress the
balance. In union with the one Mediator he prays for those who will
not pray. He offers praises in the stead of those who will not
praise. The scoffer twits him with his unnatural life; but it is not
more unnatural to give God all one's thoughts than it is unnatural to
give Him none."
"Not more unnatural, perhaps," objected Isabel, "but it is unnatural
enough, all the same."
"It may be so. But the monk is born into an unnatural state of
things. If no man gave God too little, perhaps we should have no
need of monks to give Him what men call too much. Perhaps so:
perhaps not. I don't decide. Some monkish writers have seemed to
say that even if all men were saints it would still be good for a few
to detach themselves from the whirl of life and to offer God more
perfect praises; just as there have been theologians to teach that,
even if man had not sinned, God would still have been made Man, so as
to perfect our humanity. But let such subtleties pass."
"Whether I agree with it or not, I see what you mean," said Isabel.
"But is a monk no more than this?"
"He is much more," replied Antonio, "so much more that if we sat here
all day we should hardly understand how much. But I will mention one
thing more. Not only do the masses of Christians hold back their
love and service from God; they also outrage His goodness and dim His
glory every hour of every day."
"But monks can't mend that matter," protested Isabel. "I'm no
theologian and I'm a double heretic; but I've always been told that
my right can't atone for your wrong. One man can't redeem another."
"No," said Antonio, "but one man's prayers may drive another in
penitence to the Redeemer. 'We are members one of another.' You
love science. Let me prophesy. Science will teach us some day how
subtly mind is intertwined with mind, and how mightily a thought or
an aspiration can leap from one soul to another. There is enough of
sin and shame in Christendom to make the angels weep; but God alone
knows how much more there would be if faithful nuns were not pushing
that black bulk back, all night and all day, with white hands of
prayer."
Isabel desisted from further debate. But no sooner was the stress of
argument eased in her brain than a millstone of fear settled heavily
upon her heart. Up to that moment she had felt sure of her power as
a living and beautiful woman to triumph over Antonio's shadowy Bride.
Although his cool greeting had annoyed her, and although she was
still a trifle ruffled by the affair of the gargoyle and the
centipedes, she had found zest in his monkish coyness. Like many a
huntress before her she had deemed the quarry's elusiveness charming
so long as she was confident that in the long run he would be caught.
But, all in a single moment, her eyes were opened both to the solemn
grandeur of Antonio's religion and to the startling energy of his
whole-hearted, whole-minded belief in it. The shadowy Bride suddenly
towered like an impassable, immeasurable, resplendent Jungfrau across
Isabel's path.
"I see what you mean," she said hastily, trying to push back her
crowding fears. "It's interesting, it's wonderful, I suppose it's
beautiful in a kind of way; but what has it to do with us? You're
not a monk any longer. You can't be. You say it isn't the cowl that
makes the monk; and surely, it isn't mere bricks and mortar that make
a monastery. The old abbey down there is an empty shell. Your Abbot
is dead. Your brethren are dead too, or in perpetual exile. The
Order has come to an end. You may play at being a monk; but you are
free."
Antonio began to explain the Solemn Vows. But she interrupted him
scornfully.
"Circumstances alter cases," she said. "Besides, hadn't you better
ask your conscience if you are not really worshiping your vows,
worshiping your consistency, instead of worshiping God? God will be
poorly worshiped by making yourself miserable--yourself and ... and
me."
Her voice so softened on the last two syllables that the monk's lips
could not frame an argumentative retort. Yet she must be answered.
Although he did not look at her, he could feel that the irons of her
ordeal were already glowing too hot for her endurance. Something had
to be done. At last he said:
"Without intending it you have told me, a scrap at a time, the story
of your life. May I tell you the story of mine?"
Her sorrowful eyes lit up gratefully. "Tell me every word," she said.
In the simplest language he could command, Antonio told her all. He
began by stating quite baldly the fact of his noble lineage. Then he
described briefly his childhood in Lisbon and at Cintra, and his
first sight of an Englishman in the person of a fair-haired young
captain who had been wounded at the battle of Bussaco. He told of
his 'teens in Madeira, and of the drowning of his parents and sisters
on their way thither to join him; of his appointment to a scandalous
sinecure in the gift of the Government, and of his retreat from a
position which he could do nothing to reform; of his excursion into
French scepticism; of his religious vocation and of his struggles
against it; and of his life in the monastery up to the day of his
ordination to the priesthood.
To the narrating of these events Antonio devoted barely a quarter of
an hour. When, however, he began to tell of the monks' expulsion he
let himself go; and thenceforward his warmth of tone and liveliness
of language made Isabel realize vividly every scene he described.
With kindling eyes he told her of the dying Abbot's prophecy; of his
halt at the deserted farm on the afternoon of the exodus, and of his
resolve to win back the monastery for Saint Benedict's family; of his
bitter hour in the granary at Navares; of his tramp northward; of his
hard life in Oporto; of his never-to-be-forgotten months in England
and France and Spain; of his return to the abbey; of his snub at
Villa Branca; of José; of Margarida; and of young Crowberry's
mysterious candle in the guest-house window.
"The rest you know," he said.
Throughout his recital he had gazed at the rocks, the sky, the trees,
the water; but, as he ended, he glanced nervously at Isabel,
hungering for her sympathy yet expecting her scorn. To his amazement
she slipped from her place at his side, sank down on her knees beside
him, seized both his hands in hers, and said:
"Poor Antonio! You poor Antonio. My poor Antonio!"
Her voice was tenderer than a mother's crooning over a wounded child.
Tears were brimming her eyes and flowing down her cheeks as she gazed
up into the monk's face. Then her voice broke. She bowed her head
abruptly and tried to hide her face in her hands. But she did not
let Antonio's hands go; and her tears laved the wounds torn by the
thorns of her rose.
Antonio could have endured her contempt; but this outburst of a
pitying woman's love, the first he had known for five-and-twenty
years, almost broke his heart. Thrice he devised words of
consolation; thrice they were stifled in his throat. He could only
sit and watch the conclusive rise and fall of her shoulders as the
sobbing shook her frame. Once she controlled herself enough to look
up and moan:
"Why, oh why, must we be so unhappy?"
The monk knew that an answer was not expected; so he sat silent. But
later on, when some calmness had returned to her, she put the
question again.
"Why must we be so unhappy? If God can do everything, why has he
made a world that goes so badly? Why has he made the easy things
sins and only the hard things virtues? Why has he made his creatures
so inclined to anger him or forget him? It seems mad. It seems
almost diabolical. I've never met a wicked man or a foolish woman
who could be foolish enough or wicked enough to make a world like
this if they had the power. Why is God worse than we are?"
"You do not mean what you say," he answered, soothing her. "You know
you are not putting it fairly. You--"
"I know, I know," she interrupted. "I am shallow, I am unjust, I
suppose I'm almost blasphemous. Forgive me if I've hurt you. Only,
your God is so terrible. I believe in Him; but I'm frightened. He
is nothing but grandeur and majesty. He will have no rebellion, He
insists on everybody's homage all the time."
"He is Love, everlasting Love," said Antonio warmly, "and if any
words of mine have made you doubt it, may He forgive me. I see the
world's unbelief, first and foremost, as Love rejected; and if I am a
monk it is in the hope that my whole life's prayers may perchance be
one poor drop of balm poured into Love's wounds. But these matters
are too weighty to be talked of like this. The origin of evil, the
mystery of free-will--you have raised the problems that none can
solve."
"Let us leave them alone," she pleaded. "I hate them. Deep down in
my heart, I do not disbelieve. Before you had half finished your
story, my pride was broken. Yes, when you pictured the chapel on the
night you returned, and the moonlight lingering on the crown of
Jesus, I knelt with you in spirit before that altar and words came
back to my lips that I hadn't said since I was a child."
In exceeding thankfulness he was about to speak; but she hurried on.
"Antonio," she said, "if you send me away, perhaps you will think of
me as a temptress--a woman raised up by the devil to blandish you
aside from your holy purpose, and to lure you into trampling upon
your vows. Promise you will never think of me like that. Kneeling
here on my knees, I swear before God that I am not ... that."
She paused. Then, with her head bent so that he could not see her
face, and in low tones, she added slowly:
"I have only wanted to be near you--to be with you, to spend all the
rest of my life listening to you, helping you. Heaven knows there
has never been for a moment anything ... anything base in my love. I
know what most people mean by love and I loathe it. Tell me you
don't misunderstand. Say you believe me. Promise you'll never think
of me like that."
"I promise," said Antonio, deeply moved. And, try as he would, he
could say no more.
After a long time she raised her head abruptly and challenged his
eyes. By the pallor which blanched her cheeks he divined her
question, and he knew that the bitterest moment of his life was come.
"So there is no room for me?" she asked in low, vibrating tones. "No
room for Isabel as well as for your Bride? You send me away?"
He tried to be cool; but the flame of her pure heart's yearning so
scorched him that he cried out:
"No, I do not send you away. It is not my will; it is God's. He
knows, Isabel, He knows that all the sacrifices I have ever made and
all the trials I have ever borne are as a few grains of dust compared
with this. I do not send you away. But you must go. Our spirits
are willing to take high and holy vows, here and now; but we are
flesh and we are weak. You must go. You must. You will."
She arose slowly and stood upright. Instantly he did the same. He
seized her hand; but before he could speak, she said quietly:
"I will go. After this, unless miracles happen, you will only see me
with Mrs. Baxter or with my father. But, before I go, do me one
little kindness. I promise that, so long as I live, it shall be a
secret between us. I know your heart. Once, only once, let me hear
you say that you love me."
Antonio knew that he loved her indeed, with a love whereof he had no
cause to be ashamed, and that he must speak the three little words
she craved. He began to frame a prudent preface which should
precisely qualify them and empty them of all their association with
profane passion. But his knightly blood stirred in time and saved
him. Besides, he knew that he might safely speak the words and trust
Isabel not to abuse them. He bent to her ear and said simply:
"I love you."
For a long moment she stood with closed eyes and did not stir. Then
she gently freed her hand and moved away. Antonio followed her.
Wherever the paths were wide enough they walked side by side; but
although the way was long they did not speak. Here and there in the
wood there were low boughs to be held aside, and once the monk had to
lift her bodily across a little brook; but he did all these things as
a matter of course, without a word. When the guest-house gleamed
through the trees, Antonio halted and would have uttered the few
sentences he had been arranging in his brain; but she silenced him
with a gentle gesture and walked across the broad path, up the sunny
steps, and through the wide-open doorway, without a glance behind.
VIII
Not more than two hours after Antonio's return to his farm a
messenger arrived from the guest-house and handed in two letters.
The first ran:
_Mrs. Baxter presents her compliments to Signor da Rocha and begs to
request that he will call to-day without fail, as Mrs. B. is under
the unpleasant obligation of making a painful communication to Signor
R._
The second letter was shorter still. It contained the single line:
_I must see you too._
Antonio's amazement quickly gave place to indignation. He had
examined his conscience concerning the whole business too often to
deceive himself, and he knew that he was not to blame for what had
happened. Yet here he was, summoned to endure a lecture from the
vulgar Mrs. Baxter. Worse still, when Sir Percy came back he would
be told the tale. Antonio would be regarded ever afterwards as an
abuser of a sacred trust, a heartless trifler with young affections,
an outsider, a brute, a cur fit for the horse-whip. And he would
have to suffer all this injustice in silence, because he could only
clear himself by disgracing the lady.
As he grew cooler the monk became certain that Isabel had not
deliberately betrayed him to Mrs. Baxter. Probably she had broken
down after her protracted excitements and had let slip some fatal
admission in a moment of hysteria. Or perhaps a chattering servant
had seen her walking with Antonio in the woods. Gravest possibility
of all, some sharp eyes or ears might have detected her absence in
the middle of the night. At this last thought he seized his hat and
set out for the guest-house at once.
When he reached the road, still soft after the rain, some hoof-marks
reassured him. He recognized them as the shoe-prints of Negro, an
old post-horse ridden by the casual letter-carrier of Navares. News
of some kind had evidently arrived from Sir Percy. Perhaps he was
ill, or dying. The monk's heart melted towards Isabel as he
perceived that new troubles were hurrying to smite her, and he would
gladly have submitted to the bitter censures of Mrs. Baxter in their
stead.
Isabel met him about fifty yards from the guest-house door. She
looked more beautiful than ever, but her expression dismayed him. No
traces lingered of the exaltation to which she had attained only a
few hours before. She seemed proud, hard, defiant.
"We have heard from my father," she said quickly. "The unexpected--I
mean the half-expected--has happened. We are to pack and go, as we
have packed and gone from twenty places before. It isn't azulejos
this time. It's a railway. But it'll be all the same in the end.
He wants us to start for Lisbon the day after to-morrow. Mrs. Baxter
will tell you everything."
To Antonio's surprise she neither referred to her note nor said a
word on her personal account, but led him straight into the salon
where Mrs. Baxter was seated in the midst of confusion. Isabel's
pictures had already been removed from the walls, and Jackson could
be heard in a back-room nailing down a packing-case. The noises fell
on Antonio's heart like blows on a coffin-lid.
"I have learned, Madame, with concern, that you are compelled to
undertake a fatiguing journey," said Antonio in his most formal
style. "Let me repeat my assurance that I remain, at all times,
entirely at your service."
"I'm sure you do, Signor, I'm sure you do," wailed Mrs. Baxter. "But
tell me, Signor, what do you think of it all? I was saying, only
this morning, how comforting it was that we were settled for life,
and how delightful it would be to spend the rest of my days in the
salubrious air of this favored spot, enlivened by the profitable
conversation of a congenial neighbor."
Isabel listened to her governess with a scornful lip. What Mrs.
Baxter had really said, only that morning, was that she had
determined to write Sir Percy her mind at once; that, through the
almost incredible deficiencies of the village shops and the
unscriptural errors of Joanninha, she was being starved and poisoned,
both in body and soul; that she had never stayed in such a hole
before, and never meant to again; that, after enjoying the intimacy
of some of the first personages in England, she found it intolerable
to have only one neighbor, especially when he was only a small yeoman
with no table-napkins and not enough forks to go round; and, finally,
that she flatly declined to remain after Christmas in any Portuguese
place save Lisbon or Oporto.
"The Senhora does me too much honor," said Antonio, without
enthusiasm. "But this is not final? The Senhoras will return?"
"Sir Percival Kaye-Templeman never returns anywhere," snapped Mrs.
Baxter, "I declare, Signor, that he drags me about like a slave. If
it hadn't been for my death-bed promise to the sainted mother of that
darling child sitting on the blue ottoman, I should have left him a
thousand times."
The darling child arose from the blue ottoman and went to an
escritoire. She opened a drawer and took something from it.
"Mrs. Baxter is forgetting to give you my father's letter," she said.
"He tells us he has written to thank you for all you have done."
Antonio received the sealed letter into his hand; and, as neither of
the ladies proffered him leave to read it in their presence, he
placed it in his breast-pocket.
"For the present my father also begs you to take the keys of the
abbey," added Isabel. "Here they are. He says he has explained
everything in his letter. As for this guest-house, there are only
two keys. We will give them to you when we go, on Thursday."
Antonio's heart leaped like a bird at her words about the abbey keys;
but it sank like a stone as she said, "we go on Thursday." So
violent was his agitation that, to cover it, he rose from his seat
and advanced to the open drawer of the escritoire where the keys were
lying. He dared not look at Isabel.
"If the chapel key is not here," she said, in an off-hand way, "you
know where to find it."
She placed the bunch in his hand. There were about twenty keys,
great and small, bright and dull, and they tinkled together
pleasantly as Antonio carried them back to his place. But they
sounded in his ears more like a far-heard knell than a merry chime.
"I suppose you must go now?" she inquired.
"My pet, my darling pet," expostulated Mrs. Baxter, looking daggers.
"What on earth will Signor de Rocha think? He'll think you want to
hunt him out of the house."
"So I do. There's a waterfall somewhere in the grounds. I want him,
if he has time, to show me the way to it. A waterfall and
stepping-stones. Perhaps, Mrs. Baxter, you will come with us."
"Stepping-stones!" gasped Mrs. Baxter. "Not if they were made of
solid gold. Not if you paid me a million pounds. Why, you've quite
forgotten, Isabel, darling, that if it hadn't been for
stepping-stones, poor little Lady Margaret Barricott would be alive
to-day!"
"Then you won't come? Senhor da Rocha, have you really the leisure
to take me?"
"I have the leisure," answered Antonio formally. "And, if I had not,
leisure should be made. Mrs. Baxter, I will send up my man to-morrow
to assist you in the packing of your goods, and I will certainly
attend you on Thursday. Meanwhile, I am your obedient servant."
Isabel was already in the ante-chamber and Antonio did not overtake
her until she was descending the steps. Dangling the keys he walked
beside her without speech until they reached the shelter of the
trees. Then he drew from his pocket the long steel key of the chapel
and halted a moment while he placed it among the others.
"You see that I had brought it," he said. "This morning I forgot to
give it you."
"Pray don't explain," she commanded curtly. "We've had explanations
enough and to spare."
He relocked the old-fashioned key-ring and they resumed their march,
Isabel going first along the narrow path. Antonio felt thankful for
the short respite from talk. He knew that he was on his way to the
sharpest fight of all. Although there was nothing of love in
Isabel's manner towards him, he divined that she had invited him to
the cascade in order to overthrow him by some final argument or
appeal.
Could he be sure that he would once more succeed in resistance? He
took stock of his weapons and forces. In sheer dialectic he knew
that he was Isabel's match; for the very slowness of his English gave
him a certain advantage. Nor was he greatly her inferior in
rhetorical resource. What he feared was Isabel's unconscious
challenging of his chivalry. He did not dread the wiles of
deliberate coquetry, even if she had been capable of practicing them;
and, most emphatically, he did not dread the seductiveness of her
physical charms, because the stern battle against the flesh was a
battle he had fought and won long years before. But he dreaded, with
a dread nearly driving him into cowardice, the hateful task of
bringing hot tears into her cool blue eyes and of breaking her soft
voice into heart-broken sobbings.
He glanced at Isabel as she pressed onward a yard or so ahead. As
always, she was the soul and body of grace. The poise of her golden
head upon her swan-white neck, her proud shoulders, her exquisite
waist, her fine hands plucking at the autumn leaves, her little feet
which seemed hardly to touch the earth--all these charms were as
adorable as ever. Yet there was something unusual in her port and
gait. Perhaps she was less willowy, more rigid. She advanced with a
masterful air as if to say: "To-day there shall be no nonsense. I
lead: you follow. You are mine to do as I please with. Until this
afternoon I have indulged you as I might indulge a favorite young
horse. I've let you just smell the halter and then go galloping off
to the other end of the field. I've let you lead me a breathless
dance through the buttercups and clover. But you have bucked and
jibbed and bolted and neighed and tossed up your head and shaken out
your mane and tail long enough. This time I mean to put the halter
on. So let there be no mistake about it."
Antonio observed all this and was thankful. So long as she chose to
be peremptory, scornful, logical, he was safe. The encounter, though
painful, would not be perilous. But let her once soften and he was
lost. He felt that, even with the remains of yesterday's miraculous
grace in his heart, he would be powerless against a tear or a sob.
His two sleepless nights and the unwonted stress of romantic emotions
were wearing him down, and he inwardly prayed that he might not be
tempted beyond what he would bear.
When she reached the pool, Isabel did not cross the stepping-stones.
Halting some distance from the brawling waterfall, and hardly waiting
for Antonio to approach her, she began:
"We have had many long talks at this pool. To-day's talk will be
short. Surely I have crawled to you enough on my hands and knees,
and I will do it no more."
Antonio said nothing.
"There's not an hour to lose," she went on. "If you and I are going
to do the right thing, I must tell Mrs. Baxter to stop the packing at
once. You jump! You turn pale. I suppose you're shocked to hear me
call it the right thing. I can't help it. I must speak the truth.
It is the right thing. And the opposite thing is not only wrong;
it's wicked, it's blasphemous, it's a crime. No. Don't interrupt
me. You needn't think we're going over all the old, old arguments
again."
"You have changed your mind rather swiftly," said Antonio, refusing
to be suppressed. "Barely four hours ago you seemed to acquiesce
in--"
"In my fate," she said, with a bitter laugh. "So I did. You worked
on my feelings. Don't think me coarse and brutal; but I'll give you
one illustration. You spread for me your cloak. Do you think I
didn't see how old it was? When I thought of that, and of all the
hardships you'd suffered, my heart broke and I cried and cried and
cried like a baby. But I've changed my mind. I admire you as much
as ever; but I don't admire the way you are going on. A man like you
ought to have the best cloak in the world, and all the rest of the
best things with it. You are a poet, you are a delicate gentleman.
I see it every time you pour out a drop of wine or touch a flower.
You would rejoice in exquisite things more than any woman."
"Shall I offend you, Isabel?" he asked, coloring up, "if I remind you
that this talk is to be short? We are not getting on."
"Yes, we are getting on fast," she retorted. "I say that I hate the
way you are living. To save money and to buy back this place for the
Benedictines is all very well; but I say that your sacrifices are
overdone, and that God must be grieved by your excesses. He has
shown that you are not meant to be a monk. He has driven your
brethren away, and instead of them he has sent you ... _me_. No.
I'm not conceited. I don't think I'm wonderful. But I'm your
destiny, and that's everything. You were not called to monasticism;
you were called to _me_. That is, you were called to be a monk only
to save you from the wrong woman, only until the appointed day should
dawn for you and me to meet. It has dawned. Yes, Antonio, I can
quote Scripture, and I don't quote it irreverently either. The day
has dawned. And 'To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your
heart.' If you do, it will be a sin; just as I suppose it's a sin
for a man to harden his heart against the call to be a monk."
"No more of this, I pray," cried Antonio. "If there is some great
new fact, let us have it; but let us not hark back to what we have
threshed out already."
"Very well," she said. "Here is the great new fact. My father.
What did I tell you about him? I told you that his next experiment
will kill him. But there's only one way of snatching him out of
peril. Pardon me for telling you that this abbey is mine. It was
bought with my money, and I am, to some extent, mistress of my
father's movements in Portugal. If I flatly decline to leave here;
if I pension off Mrs. Baxter; and if ... if you do what is right by
yourself and by me; then, and only then, will my father come down
from the clouds and look facts in the face. If I go back to Lisbon,
I go back to kill him."
Deeply pained, Antonio raised a hand to stop her. She took a step
forward and looked at him with steady eyes, but with trembling lips.
"Do you think, do you truly believe, that I would say a thing like
this if it were not true?" she demanded in low, quivering tones.
"Oh, Antonio, I have always known it. In your heart you despise me.
You think I'm so far sunk in shamelessness that I am taking the name
of God in vain and concocting lies about my father's life, so as to
scare you into marrying me."
"Before Heaven, Isabel, I think no such foul thought," he answered
solemnly. "But I am puzzled. If this abbey is yours, not his; and
if you are mistress of his movements; why not assert your authority
without dragging in me? Why not pension off Mrs. Baxter and get a
companion from England? Why not despatch a post to Lisbon to-night
informing your father that you will be no party to his new scheme,
and that you insist on his recruiting quietly here?"
"And you?" she demanded.
"I? No doubt we should meet sometimes."
"No doubt, no doubt," she echoed with scorching scorn. "We should
meet sometimes, and talk about the weather. You nearly make me hate
you. Have you blood in your veins or water? Have you a heart in
your breast or a cold stone? I tell you this is a crime, it is a
blasphemy. You call it religion: I call it a black sin against God."
Her terrible earnestness challenged Antonio to answer once and for
all.
"Isabel," he said sternly. "Crime and blasphemy are hard words. You
speak of God. I will speak of God too. If there is one thing I am
sure of, it is that God has called me to live this life which I am
living, and to do this work which I am doing. I am more sure of it
than I am of these rocks under our feet. As for your father, God
knows that I do not speak heartlessly; but your father's life is in
God's hands, not mine. You can rid yourself of Mrs. Baxter and
compel him to rest in England without forcing me to break my vows."
"Your vows, your precious vows, always your vows!" she cried, in
anger and great contempt.
"Yes," he retorted instantly, "my vows, always my vows. They are
precious to me indeed, and I will beg you not to speak of them
lightly."
She faced him with increasing anger. But, before she could speak,
Antonio suddenly repented himself of his sharpness.
"Isabel," he said, in quieter tones. "Think. You despise me for
keeping my vows. But suppose I had vowed my vows to you. And
suppose I should break them, for some other woman. What then?"
"I would kill her. And you too."
For a moment her wrathful excitement hindered her logical
perceptions; but as soon as she recognized his meaning she cried:
"It's different, all different! I'm real; your Bride isn't.
Besides, She has deserted you. She's run away, or She's dead. You
are free."
"No, Isabel," he said. "Think again. Suppose to-day I should vow my
vow to you. Suppose your father, or someone else, should pluck you
suddenly from my side so that I could never find you again. Nay,
more. Suppose you were untrue to me and that you abandoned me.
Would you have me say: 'She has gone. I shall never see her again.
To-morrow I will seek another bride?' No, Isabel, no. If you say
Yes, I shan't believe it. I know your soul too well. Even if you
broke yours, my vow would still be there, and you would despise me
for not keeping it. Am I right or wrong?"
He had unguardedly lowered his tones to a perilous tenderness, and he
was unconsciously gazing at her with the gaze she could never resist.
Her lips lost their hardness and began to tremble, and her eyelids
drooped over her eyes.
Antonio involuntarily recoiled from the danger. He knew in an
instant that his fate was quivering in the balance. His heart had
bled at every harsh word he spoke to her; and he knew that to sweep
away the last shaken ruins of his defenses, she needed only to throw
herself weeping into his arms. He knew that if she should once sob
out, "Antonio, Antonio, don't send me away," his doom would then and
there be sealed.
All this Antonio knew. But Isabel did not know it. His sudden
movement of recoil stung her back into anger.
"Are you right or wrong?" she echoed bitterly. "You're right, of
course. You always are. Even when you're wrong fifty times over,
you can argue yourself into the right. I call it cowardly."
He exhaled a deep breath. The peril was past. Her scorn he could
withstand.
"I have come to the end," she cried. "The very end. Listen. You
are blighting my life, but I won't let you blight your own. Mark me
well. This place is mine. These lands are mine. I have the right
to go to-night and to set the whole abbey ablaze; and where will your
work be then?"
The threat did not alarm him; but the cruelty of it, coming from such
lips as hers, cut him to the marrow. He was on the point of
retorting that the place was not hers at all, and that her father had
deceived her on a wretched point of money. But her anguish was
bitter enough without this new mortification; so he held his peace.
"I can make a bonfire of it this minute," she went on passionately.
"I hate it. How I should love to see it blaze! But I won't. And I
won't sell this place. And when I've left it on Thursday, I'll never
come back till you seek me on your knees. Never!"
Still Antonio held his peace. Isabel picked up her little bag. But
she did not turn immediately towards home. She stood awaiting his
final word. When it failed to come her indignation rose to its
climax.
"No!" she cried. "I've altered my mind. I will come back. I
foresee the end. You will never seek me. You hate me. But I will
come back. You'll go on slaving, slaving, starving, starving,
praying, praying, and breaking hearts in the name of God. But I will
come back. You'll succeed. You'll regain the abbey. You'll fill it
with monks. But remember. I will come back. On the day of your
triumph, I will be there. It isn't only you Southern people who love
revenge. I will be there. I will come back!"
Antonio had been silently praying for sudden grace in his own dire
need; but he ceased to pray for himself and prayed with all his soul
for her. She turned to go.
They stood facing one another as they had stood so often during these
two bitter days of their ordeal. Try as he would the monk could not
conceal his agony of holy love; and under the spell of his gaze the
devil of revengeful hate which had entered into Isabel rent her poor
heart and fled away. They looked at each other a long time. Then,
in a breaking voice, she said softly:
"Antonio. I don't hate you. I love you. This is the very last
time. Do you send Isabel away? Is it true that I must go?"
With a sharp moan of anguish and with hands thrust out for mercy he
gave his answer.
"For the love of Jesus Christ," he cried. "Go! And may the merciful
God help us both!"
He closed his eyes in desperate prayer. But God and the Virgin
Mother and the whole company of heaven seemed to have forsaken him.
No light shown, no supernal fortitude came down. Instead of a vision
of ministering angels, his mind's eyes saw only Isabel. Isabel,
standing there. Isabel, weeping. Isabel, wounded to death by his
cruel sword. Isabel, hoping against hope for his mercy. Isabel, his
Isabel, rarer than gold, lovelier than the dawn, purer than snow,
waiting to dart like a bird into the nest of his love.
He could fight no longer. Stepping one staggering step forward he
held out his arms and opened his eyes.
She had vanished.
A moment later he caught sight of her pressing up the path above him.
She was going swiftly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the
left. Now and again a ray of the sinking sun shone upon her hair,
till she seemed a queen crowned or a saint glorified.
With all his heart Antonio yearned to leap after her, to capture her
like a shy creature of the woods, and to bear her back in triumph,
seated on his shoulder as she had sat after the thunderstorm. But
his limbs refused to obey. His feet seemed to have been rooted for
centuries in the granite. He could not move an inch.
Two cypresses, which they had often halted to admire, hid her from
his sight. A groan, which he could not stifle, broke from the monk.
There was one more point in the path, one only, where she could
reappear. Would she turn round? Would she look back? As he waited,
red-hot pincers seemed to be working and worming within him as if
they would have his heart out of his body. He felt as if he were
bleeding at every pore.
She reappeared. She did not turn round. She did not look back. She
was gone.