And it was the right love, too, to the monk’s eyes; not a rival flame, but fuel for divine ardour.  Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again.  The winter had passed for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.

* * * * *

She was fascinated by the other’s gallant brilliance.  Religion for the nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and exulted in sun and cold.  Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and outlines—­Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret’s spiritual instinct, as she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other’s face as she came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.

She was astonished too at her friend’s gaiety; for she had expected, so far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through which Margaret knew she had passed.  It seemed to her at first as if Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady Torridon darted Ralph’s name at her, or Master More’s, or flicked her suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had been a month in the house that the nun understood.

They were together one evening in Margaret’s own white little room above the oak parlour.  Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office, and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their tale so plainly.  It was almost exactly like a cell.  A low oak bed, red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it.  There was a table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private devotions that appealed to her.  A pair of beads hung on a nail by the window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint resemblance to an altar.  The boards were bare except for a strip of matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and furniture were speckless and precise.

Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at Beatrice.

“You dear child!” she answered.

Margaret’s face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to the other’s knee, and laid it there.