Part 11

"Cousin! Cousin! Cousin!" mocked the low voice. He turned. He looked at her, and suddenly a great wave arose within him and engulfed the Great Uprising, the Secret Society, the Rescue, the Gathering at Blackheath--all--all save just one maid and she before him.

The hoarse voices of the men behind, the noises of the Fair, smote upon him, yet nothing seemed real save Rose, sitting there with a splendid, vivid sense of life pulsating through her, the shadow of her long lashes resting on her cheeks.

"Cousin indeed!" he said, with a sob in his voice, "thou knowest well that can never be!"

He clasped both her hands in his.

"I sought to flee thee," he said, with a strange directness.

She smiled and tried to withdraw her hands. But he would not relinquish them and held them fast.

"But I will not flee thee now," he went on. "I have done with struggling. It is useless."

"Nay," he added, with the superb assurance of all lovers to whom eternity is but a passing breath, "I shall never leave thee more."

Rose was not accustomed to analyze her feelings. She acted first and thought afterward--if at all, which was doubtful. But she was puzzled at her conflicting emotions as she sat there thrilling to the passion in his eyes. Her whole body throbbed and trembled in unison with his bounding pulses. She wanted to dismiss him with a scolding for his faithlessness to dear little Matilda. And she wanted to tell him that she was in love with another. Surely all men save the Baron were indifferent to her! Indeed, she had been dreaming of de Leaufort just before this impertinent poor priest had come and disturbed her. She had closed her eyes and felt distinctly the Baron's soft beard brush her cheeks; some faint, elusive perfume that tantalized her memory had entered into her senses; she had sunk into a delicious revery that almost approached a swoon. She was in a dangerously emotional mood. There is an early stage in the love affairs of an emotional woman when she is in love, as has before been said, not as she thinks, with a certain man, but with the powerful emotions which he can arouse. And, it may be added, at such a stage to dream of her lover is not, as she fondly believes, to harden herself against all other comers, but on the contrary it is to break down all the barriers before them. The wise rival is he who knows how to seize upon the psychological moment and urge his suit in no faint-hearted manner. Later on there will come the time when every line of the chosen one's countenance, every trick of manner and speech, have entered into the very warp and woof of her love. Then stand off, it is too late! The image on the sensitive plate of the heart is fixed, no longer is it a vague shadow, easily blurred or superseded!

They said nothing. There was no need of speech. Speech after all is needed only for those poor mortals whose feet rest on the earth. There is an eloquent, tumultuous speech of lovers which is felt, not heard. Their palms beat wildly one into the other, their lips grew dry, they drew long, deep, quivering breaths.

Then, when he kissed her full red lips,--the first time he had kissed a woman's lips,--it came over him that this exquisite creature was no companion for a poor russet priest.

He raised her hand to his lips. "How came you to love a poor priest!" he exclaimed, wondering.

"I love the Bishop in you," she answered, laughing.

"Ah, 'tis a long way from an excommunicated poor priest to a Bishop."

"Nay," she pouted, "I shall have a palace."

He thought her beauty worthy of a king, and told her so.

"Then make me a queen!" she cried impudently. "Yea, a great lady, a great prelate's lady. I can adorn a palace, think you, then a palace, a palace give me!"

He tried to take her in fun: "Ay, a palace, a palace. They grow in the fields--pick me one!"

"Laugh not, I mean a real palace of stone. Look not so dazed. Was not the Archdeaconate of Ely offered you? You shall yet have a Bishopric."

"But that was long ago!"

"Humph! 'long ago,' and will not the Church be gladder than ever to take back the poor priest who can hold so many men from the Uprising?"

What was all this? It was madness. He had given himself to the people, he could never recant.

She kissed his hands.

"These fingers will yet hold a Bishop's staff," she said. Her beauty was maddening. He would not think of the future. He gave himself up to the present. The breath from her lips shook him to the very core of his being. He rained kisses on her passionately--on hair, cheeks, eyes, and lips; and for all that there was a certain fierceness in his caresses, she was unafraid and well content to have it so.

Suddenly a jeering laugh rang through the air:--

"Ha, ha, Sir Russet-priest, so this is the way you follow the call of your dear Master, Jesus Christ! 'Wheresoever my Master calls me,' I think you said to me. Ho, ho, odsooks! did the good Lord graciously call me into so fair a place, I doubt not I should go even as willingly." The two sprang apart and saw the evil face of Hugo Stott leering at them. Rose was frankly frightened and turned again and clung to Annys, whose first impulse was such as any man would feel, to strike the impudent fellow to the ground. But an uncomfortable trick had grown upon him of recalling certain bits of the Gospel at all moments of excitement, and the particular lines that now rang through his brain had in them an appositeness that staid his hand:--

"If thou give fully to thy soul the delight of her desire, she will make thee the laughing-stock of thine enemies."

Indeed, it had come. Already he was the laughing-stock of his enemy. He was degraded before the very scum of the earth. He had brought the name of his beloved Lord on the lips of a sneering pardon-seller. He was held up, a self-convicted hypocrite, before the very prince of hypocrites. What could he say for himself? What could he plead? Nothing, save that he was in the grasp of the same terrible power that had brought ruin to hundreds before him. Ah! but stay, he had done wrong, great wrong; he had sinned grievously, yet by some miraculous interposition of the Lord he had been drawn back from the last step that would have cast him into the pit of hell. He had been saved. And by what a hand! Yet, although it had pleased Heaven to send a strange instrument of salvation, nevertheless, he must render due thanks to his deliverer. So, to Stott's utter surprise, instead of felling him to the earth, Annys flung off the girl and extended his hand humbly to him.

"Thanks," he said contritely. "Thou hast snatched me from the jaws of hell."

Stott could scarce believe his eyes, for he was but too ready to believe that Robert Annys was as the usual run of the priests he encountered, ever ready to preach, but not so ready to practise.

In the sudden religious exaltation that swept over him Annys was totally unconscious of his cruelty toward the woman whom he had just clasped in his arms. He could think only of his own wonderful escape. Rose rested on the ground as she had been flung, half reclining, half kneeling, dazed at the sudden change that had come over the ardent lover of a minute before. The uppermost thought in her mind was how handsome he looked in his new-found indignation. His eyes, at other times the pale blue eyes of a dreamer, now scintillated as the dark blue night sky, when the air is crisp and clear and thrilling with the glory of the stars. Deep down within her lay a discontent that all his passion for her had awakened in his eyes no such splendor. She longed to be able to awaken that light in his eyes purely for herself alone; she was fascinated by the peculiar change it wrought in his face; she found a certain pleasure in watching him impersonally, quite as if the object of his indignation were some one else and not herself at all.

As he drew himself up and looked down upon the girl, her beauty seemed to him surely of the Evil One. There rushed over him a horror that he could have succumbed so easily to the temptation that befalls every anchorite. What? was it possible that he, Robert Annys, had been ready but an instant ago to deny his people, to draw them from their most sacred cause, ready to desert the great-hearted leader to whom he had sworn lealty, all for this woman before him? Could one fall lower than this? He had been all too willing to trail the fair robes of the Holy Spouse in the dust to keep this creature by his side. He had listened to her pleadings to make himself a great prelate solely that he might twine golden chains in her locks; he to set yet another example before the people of rapacity and sensuality within the Church, and thereby discourage by so much every honest reformer! God! what wonder that he took it all as a manifestation of the powers of the Evil One? If a mage had appeared unto him and showed him a magnet which drew to it all the trees of the forest, one by one, until they all lay upturned and useless, with great gaping wounds in the earth, where, but a moment before, they had risen proudly, would he not have declared him a sorcerer, and taken him to some holy man to have him purged of his devil? or had him burned publicly at the stake? And what else but some evil sorcery could draw a man from the place where he had been rooted deep down, could sever his heart at a blow from all the things that he held sacred, and could leave him prostrate and useless, a cause of stumbling to the wayfarer?

He had been saved at the eleventh hour by divine interposition. His soul quivered with joy at again being accepted of the Lord. He raised his crucifix high over the crouching figure of the girl, and, after crossing himself on the breast and shoulders, he launched forth the terrible words of exorcism:--

"Satan, enemy of the Faith, enemy of the human race, who brought Death into the world, who has rebelled against all justice, seducer of man, root of all evil, promoter of all vices, come out, come out, I command you, from the body of this woman. Come forth, come forth, I command you, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

At last Rose awoke to the situation. Her amused incredulity of the whole strange scene now gave way to a furious anger that he could dare so to humiliate her. That comes of permitting a priest to make love to you--you never know when the saint will conquer the mere man. And there he stood in such immaculateness, his robes gathered about him, his form drawn up as if there were contamination in her very touch. There he stood, clasping that crucifix as if the Lord on it were his own special protector. Why didn't he go and have done with it? If he was remorseful, so was she; she never wanted to see his sanctimonious face again. And there was that horrid knob-nosed pardoner looking on! How dared he! how dared he! She would reply to him, she would shame him for his cowardice, she would--What she did do was to throw herself face downward on the ground, shedding tears of exasperation and impotent rage. Annys, taking this, very naturally, for a sign of penitence, thought that his exorcism had had effect, and strode off well satisfied, leaving the pardoner to gloat over the beauty of the girl with whom he so strangely and unexpectedly found himself alone. For an instant he watched the departing figure of the young priest with jaw dropped in astonishment. Could it all have been a magnificent piece of acting? No, it was impossible; even to such a cynic as Hugo Stott, it was evident that the man had been thoroughly in earnest. He looked at the girl and his eyes glistened. He tiptoed up to her.

"The devil or no devil, 'tis a delicate morsel. I fear not the devil, nor anything else when 'tis so well disguised."

He would have liked to bury his ugly face in her white neck, but, even as he approached her, she turned suddenly and screamed so loud that instantly a number of men rushed from the fair grounds. They could only swear roundly at the disappearing figure of the pardoner, who had lost no time in making off as quickly as his long gown and clumsy form would permit.

The sight of Rose, pale and trembling, and the obvious inference of what might have happened had they been less prompt, did not tend to make them waste any love on monks and pardoners. Little enough love wasted already!

XX

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.

XXI

It had been noticed for some time past by all members of the household that the Abbot of St. Dunstan seemed ill at ease. It was even the cause of some jesting among the monks that, for the first time in the recollection of his brothers, the Abbot's appetite had failed.