This chamber then had witnessed long hours of prayer and vigil, as she
knelt at the shrine in the nook between the casements, beseeching our
Lady and Saint Joseph for the safe return of her lover.
Then came the news of Hugh's supposed perfidy; and from this chamber
she had gone forth to hide her broken heart in the sacred refuge of the
Cloister; to offer to God and the service of Holy Church, the life
which had been robbed of all natural joys by the faithlessness of a man.
And this had happened eight years ago, as men count time. But as nuns
count it? And lovers? A lifetime? A night?
It had seemed indeed a lifetime to the Prioress of the White Ladies,
during the first days of her return to the world. But to the woman who
now kneeled at the casement, drinking in the balmy sweetness of the
summer night, looking with soft yearning eyes at the well-remembered
landscape flooded in silvery moonlight, it seemed--a night.
A night--since she stood on the battlements, her lover's arms about her.
A night--since she said: "Thou wilt come back to me, Hugh. . . . My
love will ever be around thee as a silver shield."
A night--since, as the last words he should hear from her lips, she had
said: "Maid or wife, God knows I am all thine own. Thine, and none
other's, forever."
Of all the memories connected with this chamber, the clearest to-night
was of the hungry ache at her heart, when Hugh had gone. It had seemed
to her then that never could that ache be stilled, until she could once
again clasp his head to her breast.
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