THE ECHO OF WILD VOICES
When the Prioress entered her cell, she stood for a moment bewildered
by the rapid walk in the darkness. She could hardly realise that the
long strain was over; that she had safely regained her chamber.
All was as she had left it. Apparently she had not been missed, and
had returned unobserved. Hugh was by now safely in the hostel at
Worcester. None need ever know that he had been here.
None need ever know--Yet, alas, it was that knowledge which held the
Prioress rooted to the spot on which she stood, gazing round her cell.
Hugh had been here; and when he was here, her one desire had been to
get him speedily away.
But now?
Dumb with the pain of a great yearning, she looked about her.
Yes; just there he had stood; here he had knelt, and there he had stood
again.
This calm monastic air had vibrated to the fervour of his voice.
It had grown calm again.
Would her poor heart in time also grow calm? Would her lips stop
trembling, and cease to feel the fire of his?
Yet for one moment, only, her mind dwelt upon herself. Then all
thought of self was merged in the realisation of his loneliness, his
suffering, his bitter disillusion. To have found her dead, would have
been hard; to have lost her living, was almost past bearing. Would it
cost him his faith in God, in truth, in purity, in honour?
The Prioress felt the insistent need of prayer. But passing the
gracious image of the Virgin and Child, she cast herself down at the
foot of the crucifix.
She had seen a strong man in agony, nailed, by the cruel iron of
circumstance, to the cross-beams of sacrifice and surrender. To the
suffering Saviour she turned, instinctively, for help and consolation.
Thus speedily had her prayer of the previous night been granted. The
piercèd feet of our dear Lord, crucified, had become more to her than
the baby feet of the Infant Jesus, on His Mother's knee.
Yet, even as she knelt--supplicating, interceding, adoring--there
echoed in her memory the wicked shriek of Mary Seraphine: "A dead God
cannot help me! I want life, not death!" followed almost instantly by
Hugh's stern question: "Is this religion?"
Truly, of late, wild voices had taken liberty of speech in the cell of
the Prioress, and had left their impious utterances echoing behind them.