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CHAPTER LIV
THE UNSEEN PRESENCE
The world was a new and a wonderful world as, leaving the chapel, Mora
turned her steps homeward. She had been wont to regard temptation
itself as sinful, but now this sacred fact "in all points tempted like
as we are" seemed to sanctify the state of being tempted, providing she
could add the three triumphant words: "Yet without sin."
As she walked, with springy step, down the grassy paths among the
heather, the Unseen Presence moved beside her.
It seemed strange that she should have found in the world this sweet
secret of the Perpetual Presence, which had evaded her in the Nunnery.
Often when her duties had taken her elsewhere in the Convent, or during
the walk through the underground way on the return from the Cathedral,
or even when walking for refreshment in the Convent garden, she would
yearn for the holy stillness of the chapel, or to be back in her cell
that she might kneel at the shrine of the Virgin and there realise the
adorable purity of our blessed Lady's heart; or, prostrating herself
before the crucifix, gaze upon those pierced feet, then slowly lift her
eyes to the other sacred wounds, and force her mind to realise and her
cold heart to receive the mighty fact that the Divine Redeemer thus
hung and suffered for her sins.
Transports of realisation had come to her in her cell, or when she kept
vigil in the Convent chapel, or when from the height of the Cathedral
clerestory she gazed down upon the High Altar, the lighted candles, the
swinging censers, and heard the chanting of the monks, and the tinkle
of the silver bell.
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