At an imperative sign from him, Walden obediently turned away, not daring to look at the men that now passed him, carrying Maryllia’s senseless form back to Abbot’s Manor, the beloved home from which she had ridden forth so gaily that morning.  He re-entered the still open doorway of his rectory, wholly unconscious that his parishioners, deeply affected by his strange and sudden mind-bewilderment, were now all as anxious about him as they were about Maryllia,—­he was too dazed to see that the faithful Bainton still waited for him on his own threshold, or that his servant Hester was still crying as though her heart would break.  He passed all and everyone—­and went straight upstairs to his own bedroom, where he closed and locked the door.  There, smiling down upon him was the portrait of his dead sister,—­and there too, just above his bed was an engraving of the tragically sweet Head crowned with thorns, of Guido’s ‘Ecce Homo.’  On this his gaze rested abstractedly.  His temples ached and throbbed, and there was a dull cold heaviness at his heart.  Keeping his eyes still on the pictured face of Christ, he dropped on his knees, clasped his hands, and tried to pray, but could not.  How should he appeal to a God who was cruel enough to kill a bright creature like Maryllia in the very zenith and fair flowering-time of her womanhood!—­an innocent happy soul that had no thought or wish to do anyone any harm!  And then he remembered his own reproaches to his friend Bishop Brent whom he had accused of selfishness for allowing his life to be swayed by the memory of an inconsolable sorrow and loss.  ’You draw a mourning veil of your own across the very face of God!’ So he had said,—­and was he not ready now to do the same?  Suddenly, like the teasing refrain of a haunting melody, there came back to his mind the verse he had read that morning: 

    “As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade,
     The happy winds upon her play’d,
     Blowing the ringlet from the braid: 
     She look’d so lovely as she sway’d
     The rein with dainty finger-tips. 
     A man had given all other bliss,
     And all his worldly wealth for this,
     To waste his whole heart in one kiss
     Upon her perfect lips.”

Over and over these rhymes went, jingling their sweet concord in his brain,—­till all at once the strong pressure upon his soul relaxed,- -a great sigh escaped his lips—­and with the sigh came the sudden breaking of the wave of grief.  A rush of scalding tears blinded his eyes—­and with a hard sob of agony his head fell forward on his clasped hands.

“Spare me her life, O God!” he passionately prayed—­“Oh God, oh God!  Save Guinevere!”

XXX