The fourteenth was shuffling down, but had not yet appeared.
Hugh slipped his left arm about the Prioress, holding her close to him;
then flung the folds of the cloak completely around her, and over his
left shoulder, pressing her head down upon his breast.
Thus they stood, motionless; her face hidden, his eyes bent upon the
narrow archway in the wall.
The fourteenth White Lady appeared; evidently noted a wider gap than
she expected between herself and the distant figure almost at the
steps, and hastened forward.
The fifteenth also hastened.
The sixteenth chanced to have taken the stairs more quickly and,
appearing almost immediately, noticed no gap.
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Not one had turned her head in the direction of the pillar. The
procession was moving, with stately tread, along its accustomed way.
A delicious sense of security enveloped Hugh d'Argent.
The woman he loved was in his arms; she was his to shield, to guard, to
hold for evermore.
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
She had come to him--come to him of her own free will. Holding her
thus, he remembered those wondrous moments at the entrance to the
crypt. How hard it had been to loose her and leave her. Yet how glad
he now was that he had done so.
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
When all these white figures are gone, safely started on their
mile-long walk, the door shut and locked behind them--then he will fold
back the cloak, turn her sweet face up to his, and lay his lips on hers.
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