Annys no longer had the strength to continue on his journey into Kent.
That night he spent in alternately praying upon his knees and pacing
up and down in anguish of spirit. Although a child of Mediævalism, and
more or less heir to the Mediæval ideas and superstitions, yet there
was much within him that was in advance of his age. He could not take
comfort in the current conception of the nature of woman. His dearly
cherished views on the marriage of the clergy, his profound hope that
the love of woman would be lifted from the base, animal view that
obtained in the morbid fancy of the followers of Mani,--all went to
arouse within him a trust and belief in womanhood which chafed at his
contemptible action in throwing all the blame upon Rose. Often in
the past had he been overwhelmed with shame as he read the cynical
confessions of priest after priest and saint after saint, wherein
all the weakness of the man had been laid on the ofttimes innocent
shoulders of the woman. He always had had a contempt for the horrible
selfishness that could permit a saint to sin with a woman, and then in
a fit of repentance mount to heaven with beatific grace while at the
same instant with perfect equanimity he sees the woman sink into the
awaiting fires of hell.
And then there came swiftly upon him the recollection that the
practical outcome of his sudden pious exaltation had been to leave
a beautiful and helpless girl at the mercy of an unscrupulous man
like Stott. In that thought lay a strong agony that was not entirely
spiritual. Enraged both at himself and the pardoner, he would gladly
have strangled the fellow, had he but come upon him at that instant.
The slow-footed dawn came and found him worn and discouraged. He was
utterly unfit to go upon his mission to Kent. The joy of helping others
should be vouchsafed only to such as first can help themselves. He,
forsooth, a leader of other men! No longer could he lead himself. He
was but a broken reed. The calm shelter of the Abbey appealed to him
with renewed insistence. He could close his eyes and instantly the
chapel with its dim religious light was before him. He could see the
dark, cowled figures of the monks passing in noiselessly, he could see
their bowed heads as they devoutly worshipped. The beautiful chanted
responses, the sombre throb of the organ, shook him to the very soul.
So he went to Matilda and told her that he was about to ask to be
taken back into the Church, in order to have a brief respite in a holy
retreat.
"I have chosen to go, not to St. Edmund's, but St. Dunstan's, ten miles
on.
"I am all at sea," he added pathetically, "adrift and helpless.
Perhaps I have been too stiff-necked. Perhaps God hath punished me for
concerning myself too much with things temporal. Perhaps after all the
Church is right in that the mission on earth of the priestly office is
not to make earth a better abiding-place, but so to lift up the minds
of men, so to fill their hearts with thoughts of the life hereafter,
that the ills of this life sink into utter insignificance."
Some of his old-time arguments against that false conception of
Christianity rose to her lips in reply. The very words that he had
spoken to her again and again she longed to speak, and yet a certain
pride held her silent. She could not bear to have him think she was
pleading for herself. Of course he could not marry her if he entered
again into the Church, and yet she would not have been human had there
been no comfort in the thought that neither could he marry any other
woman. For, with the quick intuition of a woman who loves, she had read
the secret that was torturing him. There had been moments when she had
been tempted to give him his freedom and permit him to wed her cousin.
But she read his heart too profoundly to believe that he could ever
look on Rose as a poor priest's wife. He was wrestling with the Evil
One, and it was her part only to pray for him, which she did with all
the strength and fervor of her pure soul.
He looked down on her, and he thought his heart would break within
him as he realized how strongly he yearned, really yearned, to love
this dear, sweet woman, and how utterly impossible it was for her
frank, pure eyes to quicken one beat of his pulse. For he had learned
something, and he knew now that men did not love merely with their
minds and souls. He knew now that, save he loved with every drop in his
veins and every nerve in his body, it was not what men called love. He
took her firm, strong hand in his, and readily would he have cut his
own from his arm could he have felt shoot through him the exquisite
bounding of the pulses that would come even from the faintest touch of
Rose's hand. What was this marvellous emotion that comes not and goes
not as a man wills it?
He saw with a tightening of his heart-strings that Matilda looked wan,
as if she, too, had lost much sleep. Yes, she was very dear to him, and
to see her unhappy distressed him keenly. To bid farewell to her was
like bidding farewell to a part of himself, so fully had she entered
into his life. Yet he, himself, had paled those cheeks and drawn those
new, strange lines about her mouth. Had another man done this, gladly
would he have beaten him within an inch of his life. Ah, how had he
justified the noble trust which that great-hearted lad had given him?
How could he ever look Richard Meryl in the face again? O that he had
never entered into their lives, or at least not until they had been
united. What a friend, what a sister, he had lost! A low moan broke
from him and a shudder that seemed to break his frame in two.
She forgot her wrongs, and pitied him. "God speed thee, and bring thee
back stronger than ever for the needed work."
"Ay, pray for me!" he said, "I need thy prayers sorely."
As he walked along the woods, and drew nearer to the Abbey, he grew
more at peace with himself. Already the touch of the holy life was
upon his soul. He scarce noticed what was about him, so distinct was
the picture of the Abbey walls before him. Suddenly he observed a bit
of bright color. Was it some fancy of his tortured brain, or was it
really Rose seated there at the foot of a tree?
She was in a mood that was complicated, even for her. After the scene
with Annys on the outskirts of the Fair, she had encountered the Baron.
Stung with anger and resentment against the poor priest who had so
shamed her, and also struggling against a remorseful contrition at
having countenanced (and more than countenanced) the love-making of
Matilda's plighted lover, she welcomed the distraction of the Baron's
ardent wooing. She loathed her life and her surroundings. He painted
the future in roseate colors. So, even as Annys approached, she was
on the point of keeping a rendezvous with the Baron, who was to carry
her off with him to the castle--that great, glorious, gloomy, dread,
yet fascinating castle. And yet, although her mind was fully made
up, she played with an idea, as was her wont, deep down in a kind of
subconscious fashion. Suppose, after all, she had fled with Annys! How
his eyes had blazed! And those sensitive lips! One was tantalized into
wondering whether there trembled on them a kiss or an Ave!
After all, there would have been a certain subtle charm in being
the mistress of a great and stately prelate that would be totally
lacking in giving herself to one so frankly of this world as the Baron
de Leaufort. Her prelate-lover might come to her straight from the
preaching of a sermon on chastity; she would kiss away all recollection
of it. She could see others approach him as their spiritual adviser,
and watch the holy purity of his face and revel in the knowledge that
at will she could sweep over it the swift pallor of desire. She was
full of all sorts of whimsical pictures as she looked up suddenly and
saw Annys gazing fiercely, hungrily, down at her.
"You are ill," she cried, startled.
"Ill?" he answered, in a strange, hard voice, strange even to his own
ears. "Ill! Ay! ill unto death, and all the saints in heaven cannot
save me."
He buried his face in his hands for an instant, and then he looked at
her and a groan escaped him.
"Woman," he said, "in my foolishness I thought that love could come of
heaven."
She spoke no word, but watched him, fascinated.
"Ay, poor, ignorant fool that I was! But now do I wot right well that
it cometh not out of heaven, but of hell, woman, of hell, of hell!
"See!" he cried, grasping her suddenly by the shoulders so that she
winced with pain. "See, I have sought to flee thee, I have sought to
escape by every means in my power. Even now am I on my way to shut out
the sight of thee in a cell at St. Dunstan's. I have prayed, and I have
scourged and chastised myself--but all in vain, still it conquers me,
it tortures me, this terrible power that from time immemorial hath been
the snare and curse of man--the carnal love of woman."
He noticed that his grasp hurt her, but he did not care.
"I held myself," he continued, "even I, above the Holy Fathers, above
the Saints, above temptation. I thought it might be given to man to
love tenderly and chastely. _Tenderly! O my God! tenderly!_ Listen. I
love thee, but there is nothing whatever of tenderness in my love, for
I warn thee it hath turned me into a foul demon. Flee me, flee me while
there is yet time, flee me, for there is naught of Christ's tender,
beautiful love in this. Nay, I tell thee the Fathers were right, the
love of man for woman is a cursed, cursed thing."
And making the sign of the cross, he sank upon the ground, face down,
that he could no longer look upon her.
There was something in his helplessness as he lay there, that appealed
to her better side, to that elemental mother-nature that lies
somewhere, however deep down, in the worst woman. The swift thought
to revenge herself for his humiliation of her, to keep him by her
until the arrival of the Baron and then to hold him up to ridicule and
scorn--was put aside as quickly as it was conceived. She would slip
away noiselessly and let him forget her if he could. She would even
pray that he might be able to. He looked so utterly worn and ill that
her tenderness went a bit too far. With a sudden impulsive movement
she bent low and laid one hand lightly upon one hollow temple. In an
instant he sprang up wildly, fiercely, but she had slipped quickly
behind the broad trunk of an old oak and he gazed about him stupidly.
Had it all been but a wild fantasy of his overstrained brain? He had
sprung up determined to clasp her in his arms. His struggle was at an
end, he could fight no longer.
"For this was I crucified? Thou hast crucified me again."
The plaintive words rose and fell soft and sweet through the woods.
The figure of the Lord stood before him, and oh, how infinitely sad
was the beloved countenance. Annys threw himself before Him, shaken by
terrible sobs. The figure faded away. The woods were full of the cries
of demons, evil faces mocked and jeered at him from the branches of the
trees. The sky grew copper-hued. He fled as swiftly as his trembling
limbs would carry him.
His one thought was to reach the Abbey. Already he longed to feel the
sting of the lash about his shoulders.