Amen._
Then, in that darkest hour before the dawn, she had opened the heavy
clasps of an even older volume, and copied a short prayer from the
Gelasian Sacramentary, under date A.D. 492.
_Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord, and my Thy great mercy
defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of
Thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen._
This appeared to have been copied last of all. The ink was still wet
upon the parchment.
The candles had burned down to the sockets, and gone out. The
Prioress's chair, pushed back from the table, was empty.
As the dawn crept in, it discovered her kneeling before the shrine of
the Madonna, absorbed in prayer and meditation.
She had not yet taken her final decision as to the future; but her
hesitation was now rather the slow, wondering, opening of the mind to
accept an astounding fact, than any attempt to fight against it.
Not for one moment could she doubt that our Lady, in answer to Hugh's
impassioned prayers, had chosen to make plain the Divine will, by means
of this wonderful and most explicit vision to the aged lay-sister, Mary
Antony.
When, having left Mary Antony, as she supposed, asleep, the Prioress
had reached her own cell, her first adoring cry, as she prostrated
herself before the shrine, had taken the form of the thanksgiving once
offered by the Saviour: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes.
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