"I KNOW YOU FOR A MAN"
Entering her cell, the Prioress saw at once that her orders had been
obeyed.
The hooded figure stood on the far side of the chamber, leaning broad
shoulders against the wall. Under the cape, the arms were folded; she
could see that the feet were crossed beneath the robe. The dress was
indeed the dress of a White Lady, but the form within it was so
obviously that of a man--a big man, at bay, and inclined to be
defiant--that, despite the strange situation, despite her anger, and
her fears, the contrast between the holy habit and its hidden wearer,
forced from the Prioress an unwilling smile.
Closing the door, she drew forward a chair of dark Spanish wood, the
gift of the Lord Bishop; a chair which well betokened the dignity of
her high office.
Seating herself, she laid her left hand lightly upon the mane of one of
the carved lions which formed, on either side, the arms of the chair;
but her right hand still gripped unseen the ivory hilt; while leaning
slightly forward, with feet firmly planted, she was ready at any moment
to spring erect.
"I know you for a man," she said.
The thunder rumbled far away in the distance.
The rain still splashed against the casement, but the storm had spent
itself; the sky was brightening. A pale slant of sunshine broke
through the parting clouds and, entering the casement, gleamed on the
jewelled cross at the breast of the Prioress, and kindled into peculiar
radiance the searching light of her clear eyes.
"I know you for a man," she said again. "You stand there, revealed;
and surely you stand there, shamed. By plotting and planning, by
assuming our dress, you have succeeded in forcing your undesired
presence into this sacred cloister, where dwells a little company of
women who have left the world, never to return to it again; who have
given up much in order to devote themselves to a life of continual
worship and adoration, gaining thereby a power in intercession which
brings down blessing upon those who still fight life's battles in the
world without.
"But it has meant the breaking of many a tender tie. There are fathers
and brothers dear to them, whom the nuns would love to see again; but
they cannot do so, save, on rare occasions, in the guest-room at the
gate; and then, with the grille between.
"Saving Bishop or Priest, no foot of man may tread our cloisters; no
voice of man may be heard in these cells.
"Yet--by trick and subterfuge--you have intruded. Methinks I scarce
should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done."
The Prioress paused.
The figure stood, with folded arms, immovable, leaning against the
wall. There was a quality in this motionless silence such as the
Prioress had not connected with her idea of Mary Seraphine's "Cousin
Wilfred."
This was not a man to threaten. Her threat came back to her, as if she
had flung it against a stone wall. She tried another line of reasoning.
"I know you, Sir Wilfred," she said. "And I know why you are here.
You have come to tempt away, or mayhap, if possible, to force away one
of our number who but lately took her final vows. There was a time,
not long ago, when you might have thwarted her desire to seek and find
the best and highest. But now you come too late. No bride of Heaven
turns from her high estate. Her choice is made. She will abide by it;
and so, Sir Knight, must you."
The rain had ceased. The storm was over. Sunshine flooded the cell.
Once more the Prioress spoke, and her voice was gentle.
"I know the disappointment to you must be grievous. You took great
risks; you adventured much. How long you have plotted this intrusion,
I know not. You have been thwarted in your evil purpose by the
faithfulness of one old woman, our aged lay-sister, Mary Antony, who
never fails to count the White Ladies as they go and as they return,
and who reported at once to me that one more had returned than went.
"Do you not see in this the Hand of God? Will you not bow in penitence
before Him, confessing the sinfulness of the thing you had in mind to
do?"
The shrouded head was lifted higher, as if with a proud gesture of
disavowal. At the same time, the hood slightly parting, the hand of a
man, lean and brown, gripped it close.
The Prioress looked long at that lean, brown hand.
Then she rose slowly to her feet.
"Shew me--thy--face," she said; and the tension of each word was like a
naked blade passing in and out of quivering flesh.
At sound of it the figure stood erect, took one step forward, flung
back the hood, tore open the robe and scapulary, loosing his arms from
the wide sleeves.
And--as the hood fell back--the Prioress found herself looking into a
face she had not thought to see again in life--the face of him who once
had been her lover.