not your herte afrayed, ne drede it; ye bileuen in God, and bileeue
ye in me. In the hous of my Fadir ben manye dwellingis; if ony thinge
lasse, I hadde seid to you; for I go to make readi to you a place. And
if I go to make redy to you a place, eftsoone I come, and I schal take
you to my silf, that where I am, ye be_." John xiv. 1-3.

Never before had Margery read words like these. "Be not your herte
afrayed!" Why, the one feeling which she was taught was more acceptable
to God than any other, was fear. "In the hous of my Fadir ben manye
dwellingis." Margery clasped her hands above her head, and laid head
and hands upon the open volume; and in the agony of her earnestness she
cried aloud, "O Lamb that was slain, hast thou not made ready a dwelling
for Margery Lovell!"

Margery read on, and the more she read the more she wondered. The
Church did not teach as this book did, and _both_ could not be right.
Which, then, was wrong? How could the Church be wrong, which was the
depository of God's truth? And yet, how could the holy apostle be wrong
in reporting the words of Christ?

Many times over during that night did Margery's thoughts arrange
themselves in this manner. At one time she thought that nothing could
possibly supersede the infallibility of the Church; at another she saw
the complete impossibility of anything being able to stand for a moment
against the infallibility of God. The only conclusion at which she
could arrive was a determination to read the volume, and judge for
herself. She read on. "_I am weye, treuthe, and lyf; no man cometh to
the Fadir but by me_." [John xiv. 6.] Were these words the words of
Christ? And what way had Margery been taught? Obedience to the Church,
humility, penances, alms-giving--works always, Christ never. Could
these be the right way? She went on, till the tears ran down her cheeks
like rain--till her heart throbbed and her soul glowed with feelings she
had never felt before--till the world, and life, and death, and things
present, all seemed to be nothing, and Christ alone seemed to be
everything. She read on, utterly oblivious of the flight of time, and
regardless that darkness had given place to light, until the fall of
something in the room below, and the voice of Dame Lovell calling for
Cicely, suddenly warned her that the house was astir. Margery sprang
up, her heart beating now for a different reason. She hurriedly closed
the book, and secreted it in