Yet do the frailest threads of
love and trust, make a safer rope to which to cling when shipwreck
threatens the heart, than the iron chains of obligation and duty.
Presently a sordid doubt seized upon Mother Sub-Prioress. Had the
robin finished the cheese, and come to her thus, merely to ask for more?
Very slowly she ventured to turn her head, until the stone coping at
her elbow came into her range of vision.
Then a glow of pride and happiness warmed her heart. Three--four--five
fragments remained! Not for greed or favour had this little wild thing
of his own free will drawn near.
For what, then? . . .
Mother Sub-Prioress whispered the answer; and as she whispered it, her
tears fell afresh; but now they were tears without bitterness; a
healing fount seemed to well up within her softening heart.
For love? Yea, verily! For love of her, those small brown wings had
brought him near, those bright eyes were unafraid.
"For love of me," she whispered. "For love of me."
When at length he chirped and flew, she still sat motionless, listening
as he sang his evening song high up in the pieman's tree.
Then she rose and swept the untouched fragments back into the wallet.
There was triumph in the action.
"For love!" she said. "Not of that which I brought and gave, but of
that which he thought me to be."
Slowly she left the cloister, moving, with bent head, until she reached
the open door of the empty chamber which had been the Reverend Mother's.
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