“Now speak to me freely, child.  Tell me what you wish and how I can help you,” said the abbess, kindly.

“Oh, mother! mother!  I wish to be rid of the sin of loving him, for I love him still.  In spite of all, I love him still!” exclaimed Salome, breaking down in a passion of tears and sobs.

The abbess laid her hands upon the bowed young head, and kept them so in silence until the storm of grief had passed.  Then she said: 

“Child you must fast and pray, and so combat the ’inordinate and sinful affections of the flesh.’  Bethink you what you do in suffering them.  You make an idol of that monster of iniquity who was an accomplice in the murder of your father—­”

Salome uttered a low cry, and hid her face in her hands.  The abbess went on steadily, almost pitilessly: 

“A man who, having already a living wife, of whom he had grown tired and ashamed, married you, and so would have ruined you in soul and body.”

Salome groaned deeply, and then suddenly broke forth in passionate exclamations: 

“I know it!  I know it?  I know it from the evidence of my own senses, no less than from the testimony of others!  I know it, but I cannot feel it, mother!  I cannot feel it?  My mind adjudges him guilty; my mind condemns him upon unquestionable proof; but my heart holds him guiltless; in the face of all the proofs, my heart acquits him!  I know him to be a criminal; but I feel him to be one of the greatest, best and noblest of mankind!  In spite of all I have heard and seen with my own ears and eyes, corroborated by the testimony of others—­in spite of everything past, I feel, I feel that if he should now come and take my hand in his, and whisper to me, I should believe all that he might tell me, and go with him whithersoever he might choose to lead me!  Mother, save me from myself!”

The abbess laid her hands again upon the throbbing head that lay on her lap, as she answered, mournfully: 

“Said I not that you have nothing to fear except from your weak and sinful self.  Child, you have nothing else on earth to dread.  You are to be protected from yourself alone.”

“And from him!  Oh, mother, keep the great temptation from me!”

“He shall be kept from you, if, indeed, he should presume to seek you here,” said the abbess.

“He will seek me, mother!  He came to seek me, and for nothing else.  He has by some means found out my retreat, and he has come to seek me!  Be sure that he will present himself here to-morrow, if not to-day.”

“In that case, we shall know how to deal with him, even though he is the Duke of Hereward; for he has, and can have, no lawful claim on you.  So far from that, he is in deadly danger from you.  He is liable to prosecution by you; for you are not his wife; you are only a lady whom he entrapped by a felonious marriage ceremony, and sought to ruin.  It is amazing,” added the abbess, reflectively, “that a nobleman of his exalted rank and illustrious fame should have stooped so low as to stain his honor with so deep a crime, and to risk the infamy and destruction its discovery must have brought upon him.”