THE SECRET PASSAGE.
The kitchen at the Grey Nunnery was flagged with slate-coloured stone.
A spacious apartment: though, it must be confessed, very barely
furnished. A dresser, with its shelves, holding plates and dishes; a
few pots and pans; some wooden chairs; and a large deal table in the
centre of the room, were the principal features that caught the eye.
The time was evening. Three of the Sisters were ironing. Or, to be
quite correct, two of them were ironing, and the other, Sister Ann,
was attending to the irons at the fire, and to the horse full of fresh
ironed clothes, that stood near it. The fire threw its ruddy glow
around: upon the plates, of the old common willow pattern, ranged on
the dresser-shelves, on the tin dish-covers, hanging against the wall,
on the ironing blanket, spread on the large table. One candle only was
on the board, for the Sisters were economical, and moreover possessed
good eyesight; it was but a common dip in an upright iron candlestick,
and required to be snuffed often. Each of the two Sisters, standing
side by side, had her ironing stand on her right hand, down on which
she clapped the iron continually. They wore their muslin caps, and
had on ample brown-holland aprons that completely shielded their grey
gowns, with over-sleeves of the same material that reached up nearly to
the elbow.
The Sisters were enjoying a little friendly dispute: for such things
(and sometimes not altogether friendly) will take place in the best
regulated communities. Some pea-soup, that had formed a portion of the
dinner that day, was not good: each of the three Sisters held her own
opinion as to the cause of its defects.
"I tell you it was the fault of the peas," said Sister Caroline, who
was cook that week and had made the soup. "You can't make good soup
with bad peas. It's not the first time they have sent us bad peas from
that place."
"There's nothing the matter with the peas," dissented fat little
Sister Phoeby, who had to stand in her pattens to obtain proper
command of the board whenever it was her turn to iron. "I know peas
when I look at them, I hope, and I say these are good."
"Why, they would not boil at all," retorted Sister Caroline.
"That's because you did not soak them long enough."
"Soaking or not soaking does not seem to make much difference," said
the aspersed Sister, shaking out a muslin kerchief violently before
spreading it on the blanket. "The last time it was my week for cooking
we had pea-soup twice. I soaked the peas for four-and-twenty hours;
and yet the soup was grumbled at! Give me a fresh iron, please, Sister
Ann."
Sister Ann, in taking one of the irons from between the bars of the
grate, let it fall with a crash on the purgatory. It made a fine
clatter, and both the ironers looked round. Sister Ann picked it up;
rubbed it on the ironing cloth to see that it was the right heat, put
it on Sister Caroline's stand, and took away the cool one.
"The fact is this," she said, putting the latter to the fire, "you
can't make pea-soup, Sister Caroline. Now, it's of no use to fly out:
you can't. You don't go the right way to make it. You just put on
the liquor that the beef or pork has been boiled in, or from bones
stewed down, as may be, and you boil the peas in that, and serve it up
as pea-soup. Fine soup it is! No flavour, no goodness, no anything.
The stock is good enough: we can't afford better; and nobody need have
better: but if you want your pea-soup to be nice, you must stew plenty
of vegetables in it--carrots especially, and the outside leaves of
celery. That gives it a delicious flavour: and you need not use half
the quantity of peas if you pass the pulp of the vegetables with them
through the calender."
"Oh, yes!" returned Sister Caroline in a sarcastic tone. "Your
pea-soup is always good: we all know that!"
"And so it is good," was easy-tempered Sister Ann's cheery answer: and
she knew that she spoke the truth. "The soup I make is not a tasteless
stodge that you may almost cut with the spoon, as the soup was to-day;
but a delicious, palatable soup that anybody may enjoy, fit for the
company-table of the Master of Greylands. Just look how your candle
wants snuffing!"
Sister Caroline snuffed the candle with a fling, and put down the
snuffers. She did not like to be found fault with. Sister Phoeby, who
wanted a fresh iron, went clanking to the fire in her pattens, and got
it for herself, leaving her own in the bars. Sister Ann was busy just
then, turning the clothes on the horse.
"What I should do with that cold pea-soup is this--for I'm sure it can
never be eaten as it is," suggested Sister Ann to the cook. "You've
got the liquor from that boiled knuckle of ham in the larder; put it
on early to-morrow with plenty of water and fresh vegetables; half an
hour before dinner strain the vegetables off, and turn the pea-soup
into it. It will thin it by the one half, and make it palatable."
"What's the time?" demanded Sister Caroline, making no answering
comment to the advice. "Does anybody know?"
"It must have struck half-past eight."
"Was not Sister Margaret to have some arrowroot taken up?"
"Yes, I'll make it," said Sister Ann. "You two keep on, with the
ironing."
Sister Margaret was temporarily indisposed; the result, Mr. Parker
thought, of a chill; and was confined to her bed. Taking a small
saucepan from its place, Sister Ann was reaching in the cupboard for
the tin of arrowroot, when a most tremendous ringing came to the
house bell. Whether it was one prolonged ring, or a succession of
rings, they could not tell; but it never ceased, and it alarmed the
Sisters. Cries and shrieks were also heard outside.
"It must be fire!" ejaculated the startled women.
All three rushed out of the kitchen and made for the front door,
Sister Phoeby kicking off her pattens that she might ran the quicker.
Old Sister Mildred, who had become so much better of late that she was
about again just as the other ladies were, appeared at the door of the
parlour with Sister Mary Ursula.
"Make haste, children! make haste!" she cried, as the three were
fumbling at the entrance-door, and impeding one another; for "The more
haste the less speed," as says the old proverb, held good here.
When it was flung open, some prostrate body in a shawl and bonnet was
discovered there, uttering cries and dismal moans. The Sisters
hastened to raise her, and found it was Miss Hallet. Miss Hallet
covered from head to foot in dust. She staggered in, clinging to them
all. Jane followed more sedately, but looking white and scared.
"Dear, dear!" exclaimed compassionating Sister Mildred, whose
deafness was somewhat better with her improved health, so that she did
not always need her new ear-trumpet. "Have you had an accident, Miss
Hallet? Pray come into the parlour."
Seated there in Sister Mildred's own easy-chair, her shawl unfastened
by sympathising hands, her bonnet removed, Miss. Hallet's gasps
culminated in a fit of hysterics. Between her cries she managed to
disclose the truth--the Grey Monk had appeared to her.
Some of the Sisters gave a shiver and drew closer together. The Grey
Monk again!
"But all the dust that is upon you?" asked Sister Phoeby. "Did the
Grey Friar do that?"
In one sense yes, for he had caused it, was the substance of Miss
Hallet's answer. The terror he gave her was so great that she had
fallen flat down in the dusty road.
In half a minute after Miss Hallet's shriek and fall, as related in
the last chapter, Jane had run up to her. The impression upon Miss
Hallet's mind was that Jane had come up from behind her, not from
before her; but Jane seemed to intimate that she had come back from
Chapel Lane; and Miss Hallet's perceptions were not in a state to be
trusted just then. "What brings you here, aunt?--what are you doing
up here?--what's the matter?" asked Jane, essaying to raise her. "Nay,"
said Miss Hallet, when she could get some words out for fright, "the
question is, what brings you here?" "I," said Jane; "why I was only
running to the Hutt, to give Commodore Teague the muffetees I have
been knitting for him," and out of Jane's pocket came the said
muffetees, of a bright plum-colour, in proof of the assertion; though
it might be true or it might not. "Has it gone?" faintly asked Miss
Hallet. "Has what gone, aunt?" "The Grey Friar. It appeared to me at
that window, and down I fell: my limbs failed me." "There--there is
a faint light," said Jane, looking up for the first time. "Oh, aunt!"
Jane's teeth began to chatter. Miss Hallet, in the extreme sense of
terror, and not daring to get up, took a roll or two down the hill in
the dust: anything to get away from that dreadful Keep. But it bumped
and bruised her: she was no longer young; not to speak of the damage
to her clothes, of which she was always careful. So with Jane's help
she managed to get upon her feet, and reach the Nunnery somehow;
where, shrieking in very nervousness, she seized upon the bell, and
pulled it incessantly until admitted, as though her arm were worked by
steam.
"My legs failed me," gasped Miss Hallet, explaining now to the
Sisters: "I dropped like a stone in the road, and rolled there in the
dust. It was an awful sight," she added, drawing unconsciously on the
terrors of her imagination: "a bluish, greenish kind of light at
first; and then a most dreadful, ghostly apparition with a lamp, or
soft flame of some kind, in its outstretched arm. I wonder I did not
die."
Sister Mildred unlocked a cupboard, and produced a bottle of cordial,
a recent present from Mrs. Bent: a little of which she administered to
the terrified nervous woman. Miss Hallet swallowed it in gulps. There
was no end of confused chattering: a ghost is so exciting a subject to
discuss, especially when it has been just seen. Sister Ann compared
the present description of the Grey Friar with that which she and
Sister Rachel had witnessed, not so long before, and declared the two
to tally in every particular. Trembling Sister Judith added her
personal testimony. Altogether there had not been so much noise and
bustle within the peaceful walls of the Nunnery since that same
eventful night, whose doings had been crowned by the arrival of poor
little Polly Gleeson with her burns. In the midst of it an idea
occurred to Sister Mildred.
"But what brought you up by the Friar's Keep at night, Miss Hallet?"
she asked. "It is a lonely road: nobody takes it by choice."
Miss Hallet made no answer. She was gasping again.
"I dare say she was going to see the coastguardsman's wife, sick Emma
Mann," spoke Sister Phoeby heartily. "Don't tease her." And Miss
Hallet, catching at the suggestion in her extremity, gave Sister
Phoeby a nod of acquiescence. It went against the grain to do so, for
she was integrity itself, but she would not have these ladies know the
truth for the world.
"And Jane had ran on to take the mittens to the Commodore, so that you
were alone," said Sister Mildred, following out probabilities in her
own mind, and nodding pleasantly to Miss Hallet. "I see. Dear me! What
a dreadful thing this apparition is!--what will become of us all? I
used not to believe in it much."
"Well, you see people have gone past the Keep at night lately more
than they used to: I'm sure one or another seems always to be passing
by it," remarked Sister Ann sensibly. "We should hear nothing about it
now but for that."
When somewhat recovered, Miss Hallet asked for her bonnet and shawl:
which had been taken away to be shaken and brushed. Leaving her thanks
with the Sisters, she departed with Jane, and walked home in humility.
Now than the actual, present fear had subsided, she felt ashamed of
herself for having given way to it, and particularly for having
disturbed the Nunnery in the frantic manner described. But hers had
been real, genuine terror; and she could no more have helped its
laying complete hold of her at the time than she could have taken
wings and flown away from the spot, as an arrow flies through the air.
A staid, sober-aged, well-reared woman like herself, to have made a
commotion as though she had been some poor ignorant fish girl! Miss
Hallet walked dumbly along, keeping her diminished head down as she
toiled up the cliff.
After supper and prayers were over that night at the Nunnery, and most
of the Grey Ladies had retired to their rooms--which they generally
did at an early hour when there was nothing, sickness or else, to keep
them up--Sisters Mildred and Mary Ursula remained alone in the
parlour. That they should be conversing upon what had taken place was
only natural. Mary Ursula had not, herself, the slightest faith in the
supernatural adjunct of the Grey Friar; who or what it was she knew
not, or why it should haunt the place and show itself as it did, lamp
in hand; but she believed it would turn out to be a real presence, not
a ghostly one. Sister Mildred prudently shook her head at this
heterodoxy, confessing that she could not join in it; but she readily
agreed that the Friar's Keep was a most mysterious place; and, in the
ardour of conversation, she disclosed a secret which very much
astonished Mary Ursula. There was an underground passage leading
direct from the vaults of the Nunnery to the vaults of the Keep.
"I have known of it for many years," Mildred said, "and never spoken
of it to any one. My Sister Mary discovered it: you have heard, I
think, that she was one of us in early days: but she died young. After
we took possession of this building, Mary, who was lively and active,
used to go about, above ground and under it, exploring, as she called
it. One day she came upon a secret door below, that disclosed a dark,
narrow passage: she penetrated some distance into it, but did not cate
to go on alone. At night, when the rest of the ladies had retired, she
and I stayed up together--just as you and I have stayed up to-night,
my dear, for it was in this very parlour--and she got me to go and
explore it with her. We took a lantern to light our steps, and went.
The passage was narrow, as I have said, and apparently built in a long
straight line, without turnings, angles, or outlets. Not to fatigue
you, I will shortly say, that after going a very long way, as it
seemed to us, poor timid creatures that we were, we passed through
another door, and found ourselves in a pillared place that looked not
unlike cloisters, and at length made it out to be vaults under the
Friar's Keep."
"What a strange thing!" exclaimed Mary Ursula, speaking into the
instrument she had recently made the good Sister a present of--a small
ear-trumpet, for they were talking almost in a whisper.
"Not so strange when you remember what the place was originally,"
dissented Sister Mildred. "Tradition says, you know, that these old
religions buildings abounded in secret passages. I did not speak of
the discovery, and enjoined silence on Mary; the Sisters might have
been uncomfortable; and it was not a nice thing, you see, to let the
public know there was a secret passage into our abode."
"Did you never enter it again?"
"Yes, once. Mary would go; and of course I could not let her go
alone. It was not long before the illness came on that terminated in
her death. Ah, my dear, we were young then, and such an expedition
bore for us a kind of pleasurable romance."
Mary Ursula sat in thought. "It strikes me as not being a pleasant
idea," she said--"the knowledge that we may be invaded at any hour by
some ill-disposed or curious straggler, who chooses to frequent the
Friar's Keep."
"Not a bit of it, my dear," said Sister Mildred, briskly. "Don't fear.
We can go to the Keep at will, but the Keep cannot come to us. The two
doors are firmly locked, and I hold the keys."
"I should like to see this passage!" exclaimed Mary Ursula. "Are
you--dear Sister Mildred, do you think you are well enough to show it
to me?"
"I'll make myself well enough," returned the good-natured lady: "and I
think I am really so. My dear, I have always meant from, the time you
joined as to tell you of this secret passage: and for two reasons. The
one because the Head of our Community ought not to be in ignorance
that there is such a place; the other because it was your cousin who
recently has disappeared so unaccountably in the Keep--though I
suppose the passage could not have had anything to do with that. But
for my illness, I should have spoken before. We will go to-night, if
you will."
Mary Ursula eagerly embraced the proposal on the spot. Attiring
themselves in their warmest grey cloaks, the hoods well muffled about
their heads, for Sister Mildred said the passage would strike cold as
an ice-house, they descended to the vaults below; the elder lady
carrying the keys and Mary Ursula the lighted horn lantern, which had
slides to its four sides to make it lighter or darker at will.
"See, here's the door," whispered Sister Mildred, advancing to an
obscure corner. "No one would ever find it; unless they had a special
talent for exploring as my poor Mary had. Do you see this little nail
in the wall? Well the keys were hanging up there: and it was in
consequence of the keys catching her eye That Mary looked for the
door."
It required the efforts of both ladies to turn the key in the rusty
lock. As the small gothic door was pushed open, a rash of cold damp
air blew on their faces. The passage was hardly wide enough to admit
two abreast; at least without brushing against the walls on either
side. The ladies held one another; Mary Ursula keeping a little in
advance, her hand stretched upwards with the lantern so that its light
might guide their steps.
A very long passage: no diversion in it, no turnings or angles or
outlets, as Sister Mildred had described; nothing but the damp and
monotonous stone walls on either hand or overhead. While Mary Ursula
was wondering whether they were going on for ever, the glimmer of the
lantern suddenly played on a gothic door in front, of the same size
and shape as the one they had passed through.
"This is the other door, and this is the key," whispered Sister
Mildred.
They put it in the lock. It turned with some difficulty and a grating
sound, and the door slowly opened towards them. Another minute, and
they had passed into the vaults beneath the Friar's Keep.
Very damp and cold and mouldy and unearthly. As far as Mary Ursula
could judge, in the dim and confined light emitted by the small
lantern, they appeared to be quite like the cloisters above: the same
massive upright pillars of division forming arches against the roof,
the same damp stone flooring. There was no outlet to be seen in any
part; no staircase upwards or downwards. Mary Ursula carried her
lantern and waved it about but could find none: none save the door
they had come through.
"Is there any outlet to this place, except the passage?" she asked of
Sister Mildred.
"Very, my dear; very damp indeed," was the Sister's answer. "I think
we had better not stay; I am shivering with the cold air; and there's
nothing, as you perceive, to see."
The ear-trumpet had been left behind, and Mary Ursula did not dare
raise her voice to a loud key. She was inwardly shivering herself; not
with the chilly, mildewy air, but with her own involuntary thoughts.
Thoughts that she would have willingly forbidden entrance to, but
could not. With these secret vaults and places under the Keep, secret
because they were not generally known abroad, what facilities existed
for dealing ill with Anthony Castlemaine; for putting him out of sight
for ever!
"Can he be concealed here still, alive or dead?" she murmured to
herself. "Surely not alive: for how----"
A sound! A sound close at hand. It was on the opposite side of the
vault, and was like the striking of some metal against the wall: or it
might have been the banging of a door. Instinctively Mary Ursula hid
the lantern under her cloak, caught hold of Sister Mildred, and
crouched down with her behind the remotest pillar. The Sister had
heard nothing, of course; but she comprehended that there was some
cause for alarm.
"Oh, my dear, what will become of us!" she breathed. "Whatever is it?"
Mary dared not speak. She put her hand on the Sister's lips to enjoin
silence, and kept it there. Sister Mildred had gone down in a most
uncomfortable position, one leg bent under her; and but for grasping
the pillar for support with both hands she must have tumbled
backwards. Mary Ursula, was kneeling in very close contact, which
helped to prop the poor lady up behind. As to the pillar, it was
nothing like wide enough to conceal them both had the place been
light.
But it was pitch dark. A darkness that might almost be felt. In the
midst of it; in the midst of their painful suspense, not knowing what
to expect or fear, there arose a faint, distant glimmering of light
over in the direction where Mary had heard the sound. A minute
afterwards some indistinct, shadowy form appeared, dressed in a monk's
habit and cowl. It was the apparition of the Grey Friar.
A low, unearthly moan broke from Sister Mildred. Mary Ursula, herself
faint with terror, as must be confessed, but keenly alive to the
necessity for their keeping still and silent, pressed the Sister's
mouth more closely, and strove to reassure her by clasping her waist
with the other hand. The figure, holding its lamp before it, glided
swiftly across the vault amid the pillars, and vanished.
It all seemed to pass in a single moment. The unfortunate
ladies--"distilled almost to jelly with the effect of fear," as Horatio
says--cowered together, not knowing what was next to happen to them, or
what other sight might appear. Sister Mildred went into an ague-fit.
Nothing more came; neither sight nor sound. The vaulted cloisters
remained silent and inky-dark. Presently Mary Ursula ventured to show
her light cautiously to guide their footsteps to the door, towards
which she supported Sister Mildred: who once in the passage and the
door locked behind her, gave vent to her suppressed terror in low
cries and moans and groans. The light of the lantern, thrown on her
face, showed it to be as damp as the wall on either side her, and
ghastly white. Thus they trod the passage back to their own domains,
Sister Mildred requiring substantial help.
"Take the keys," she said to Mary Ursula, when they were once more in
the warm and lighted parlour, safe and sound, save for the fright.
"They belong to your custody of right now; and I'm sure a saint out of
heaven would never induce me to use them again. I'd rather have seen a
corpse walk about in its grave-clothes."
"But, dear Sister Mildred--it was very terrifying, I admit; but it
could not have been supernatural. There cannot be such things as
ghosts."
"My child, we saw it," was the all-convincing answer "Perhaps if they
were to get a parson into the place and let him say some prayers, the
poor wandering spirit might be laid to rest."
That there was something strangely unaccountable connected with the
Friar's Keep and some strange mystery attaching to it, Mary Ursula
felt to her heart's core. She carried the two keys to her chamber, and
locked them up in a place of safety. Her room adjoined Sister
Mildred's; and she stood for some time looking out to sea before
undressing. Partly to recover her equanimity; which had unquestionably
been considerably shaken during the expedition; partly to indulge her
thoughts and fancies, there she stood. An idea of the possibility of
Anthony Castlemaine's being alive still, and kept a prisoner in some
of these vaults underneath the Keep, had dawned upon her. That there
were other and more secret vaults besides these cloisters they had
seen, was more than probable: vaults in which men might be secretly
confined for a lifetime--ay, and no doubt had been in the old days;
confined until claimed by a lingering death. She did not think it
likely that Anthony was there, alive: the conviction, that he was
dead, had lain upon her from the first; it was upon her still: but the
other idea had crept in and was making itself just sufficiently heard
to render her uncomfortable.
Her chamber was rather a nice one and much larger than Sister
Mildred's. Certain articles suggestive of comfort, that had belonged
to her room at Stilborough, had been placed in it: a light sofa and
sofa table; a pretty stand for books; a handsome reading lamp; a small
cabinet with glass doors, within which were deposited some cherished
ornaments and mementoes that it would have given her pain to part
with; and such like. If Miss Castlemaine had renounced the world, she
had not renounced some of its little vanities, its home-refinements
neither did the Community she had joined require anything of the kind
to be done. The window, with its most beautiful view of the sea, was
kept free; curtains and draperies had been put up, no less for warmth
than look: on one side it stood the cabinet, on the other the
dressing-table and glass; the bed and the articles of furniture
pertaining to it, drawers, washhand-stand, and such like, occupied the
other end of the room. It was, in fact, a sitting-room and bedroom
combined. And there, at its window, stood Mary Ursula, shivering
almost as much as she had shivered in the cloisters, and full of
inward discomfort.
In the course of the following morning, she was sitting with sick
Sister Margaret, when word came to her that a gentleman had called.
Proceeding to the reception parlour, she found the faithful old friend
and clerk, Thomas Hill. He was much altered, that good old man: the
unhappy death of his master and the anxiety connected with the bank
affairs had told upon him perhaps also the cessation from the close
routine of daily business was bearing for him its almost inevitable
effect: at least, when Mary Ursula tenderly asked what it was that
ailed him, he answered, Weariness, induced by having nothing to do.
The tears rushed to his eyes when he inquired after her life--whether
it satisfied her, whether she was not already sick to death of it,
whether repentance for the step had yet set in. And Mary assured him
that the contrary was the fact; that she was getting to like the
seclusion better day by day.
"Can you have comforts here, my dear Miss Mary?" he inquired, not at
all satisfied.
"Oh, yes, any that I please," she replied. "You should see my room
above, dear old friend: it is nearly as luxurious and quite as
comfortable as my chamber was at home."
"Will they let you have a fire in it, Miss Mary?"
She laughed; partly at the thought, partly to reassure him. "Of course
I could if I wished for it; but the weather is coming in warm now.
Sister Mildred has had a fire in her room all the winter. I am head of
all, you know, and can order what I please."
"And you'll not forget, Miss Mary, that what I have is yours," he
returned in a low, eager tone. "Draw upon it when you like: be sure to
take care of your comforts. I should like to leave you a cheque-book:
I have brought it over with its cheques signed----"
She stopped him with hasty, loving words of thanks. Assuring him that
her income was enough, and more than enough, for everything she could
possibly want, whether individually or for her share in the expenses
of the Community. Thomas Hill, much disappointed, returned the new
cheque-book to his pocket again.
"I wish to ask you one question," she resumed, after a pause, and in a
tone as low as his own. "Can you tell me how the estate of Greylands'
Rest was left by my grandfather?"
"No, I cannot, Miss Mary; I have never known. Your father did not
know."
"My father did not know?" she said in some surprise.
"He did not. On the very last day of his life, when he was just as ill
as he could be, my dear good master, he spoke of it to me: it was
while he was giving me a message to deliver to his nephew, the young
man Anthony, Mr. Basil's son. He said that he had never cared to
inquire the particulars, and fully believed that it became James's by
legal right; he felt sure that had it been left to Basil, James would
not have retained possession. Miss Mary, I say the same."
"And--what is your opinion as to what became of Anthony?" she
continued after a short pause.
"I think, my dear, that young Mr. Anthony must somehow have fallen
into the sea. He'd not be the first man, poor fellow, by a good many,
who has met with death through taking an uncertain step in the
deceptive moonlight."
Mary Ursula said no more. This was but conjecture, just as all the
rest of it had been.
When the visit was over, she put on her bonnet to stroll out with him.
He had walked from Stilborough, intending to dine at the Dolphin, and
go back afterwards at his leisure. Mary went with him on the beach,
and then parted with him at the door of the inn.
"You are sure you are tolerably happy, my dear?" he urged, as though
needing to be assured of it again and again, holding both her hands in
his. "Ah, my dear young lady, it is all very well for you to say you
are; but I cannot get reconciled to it. I wish you could have found
your happiness in a different sphere."
She knew what he meant--found it as William Blake-Gordon's
wife--and something like a faintness stole over her spirit.
"Circumstances worked against it," she meekly breathed. "I am content
to believe that the life I have embraced is the best for me; the one
appointed by God."
How little did she think that almost close upon that minute, she
should encounter him--her whilom lover! Not feeling inclined to
return at once to the Nunnery, and knowing that there was yet a small
space of time before dinner, she continued her way alone up the
secluded road towards the church. When just abreast of the sacred
edifice a lady and gentleman approached on horseback, having
apparently ridden from Stilborough. She recognized them too late to
turn or retreat: it was William Blake-Gordon and Miss Mountsorrel.
Miss Mountsorrel checked her horse impulsively; he could but do the
same. The young lady spoke.
"Mary! is it you? How strange that we should meet you! I thought you
never came beyond the convent walls."
"Did you? I go out where and when I please. Are you well, Agatha?"
"Are you well?--that is the chief question," returned Miss
Mountsorrel, with a great deal of concern and sympathy in her tone.
"You do not look so."
Just then Mary undoubtedly did not. Emotion had turned her as pale as
death. Happening to catch sight of the countenance of Mr. Blake-Gordon,
she saw that his face was, if possible, whiter than her own. A
strangely yearning, imploring look went out to her from his eyes--but
what it meant, she knew not.
"I shall come and see you some day, Mary, if I may," said Miss
Mountsorrel.
"Certainly you may."
They prepared to ride on: Mr. Blake-Gordon's horse was restive. The
young ladies wished each other good morning he bowed and lifted his
hat. He had not spoken a word to her, or she to him. They had simply
stood there face to face, he on horseback, she on foot, with the
tale-telling emotion welling up from their hearts.
Mary opened the churchyard gate, went in, and sat down under a remote
tree near the tomb of the Castlemaines, hiding her face in her hands.
She felt sick and faint; and trembled as the young green leaves about
her were trembling in the gentle wind. So! this was the manner of
their meeting again: when he was riding by the side of another!
The noise of horses, passing by, caused her to raise her head and
glance to the road again. Young Mountsorrel was riding swiftly past to
catch his sister, having apparently lingered temporarily behind: and
the groom clattered closely after him at a sharp trot.