“Dead bride!  Dead bride!” sounded the tramping footsteps.  And all the way she was haunted by the belief, assailing her confused senses in the darkness, that the spirit of Father Gervaise had met the stretcher; that his was the voice which murmured low and tenderly; “Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.  Go in peace.”

With this had come a horror of the outer world, a wild desire for the safety and shelter of the Cloister, and an absolute physical dread of the moment when the covering cloak should be removed, and she would find herself alone with her lover; and, on rising from the stretcher, be seized by his arms.

Yet when, having been tilted up steps, she was conscious of the silence of passages and soon the even more complete quiet of a room; when the stretcher was set down, and the bearers’ feet died away, Hugh’s deep voice said gently:  “Change thy garments quickly, my beloved.  There is no time to lose.”  But he laid no hand upon the cloak, and his footsteps, also, died away.

Then pushing back the heavy folds and sitting up, she had found herself alone in a bedchamber, everything she could need laid ready to her hand; while, upon the bed, lay her green riding-dress, discarded forever, eight years before!

Her mind refused to look back upon the half-hour that followed.

She saw herself next appearing in the doorway at the top of a flight of eight steps, leading down into the yard of the hostelry, where a cavalcade of men and horses waited; while Icon, the Bishop’s beautiful white palfrey, was being led to and fro, and Hugh stood with an open letter in his hand.

As she hesitated in the doorway, gazing down upon the waiting, restive crowd, Hugh looked up and saw her.  Into his eyes flashed a light of triumphant joy, of adoring love and admiration.  She had avoided looking at her own reflection; but his face, as he came up the steps, mirrored her loveliness.  It had cost her such anguish of soul to divest herself of her sacred habit and don these gay garments belonging to a life long left behind, that his evident delight in the change, moved her to an unreasonable resentment.  Also that sudden blaze of love in his dark eyes, dazzled her heart, even as a burst of sunshine might dazzle one used to perpetual twilight.

She took the Bishop’s letter, with averted eyes; read it; then moved swiftly down the steps to where Icon waited.

“Mount me,” she said to Martin Goodfellow, as she passed him; and it was Martin who swung her into the saddle.

Then she trembled at what she had done, in yielding to this impulse which made her shrink from Hugh.

As the black mane of his horse drew level with Icon’s head, and side by side they rode out from the courtyard, she feared a thunder-cloud on the Knight’s brow, and a sullen silence, as the best she could expect.  But calm and cheerful, his voice fell on her ear; and glancing at him furtively, she still saw on his face that light which dazzled her heart.  Yet no word did he speak which all might not have heard, and not once did he lay his hand on hers.  Each time they dismounted, she saw him sign to Martin Goodfellow, and it was Martin who helped her to alight.