in the monastery cell, with my
hands clasped over my eyes, as I had thrown myself down on coming in;
and, with a strange contrariety, my mind, broken rudely from its hope,
had flown to my far away home, oblivious of the benumbed links that
lay between. A knock at my door completed the return to my despair,
for with a look at the walls of my little chamber, in the bright beam
of moonlight that streamed in at the narrow window, I was, by
recognition, again at Vallambrosa, and Stephania, with an accepted
lover's voice in her ear, was again near me, her moistened eyes
steeped with Palgray's in the same beam of the all-visiting and
unbetraying moon.

Father Ludovic entered. The gentle tone of his _benedicite_, told me
that he had come on an errand of sympathy. There was little need of
preliminary between two who read the inner countenance as habitually
as did both of us; and as briefly as the knowledge and present feeling
of each could be re-expressed in words, we confirmed the
spirit-mingling that had brought him there, and were presently as one.
He had read truly the drama of love, enacting in the party of visiters
to his convent, but his judgment of the possible termination of it was
different from mine.

* * * * *

Palgray's dormitory was at the extremity of the cloister, and we
presently heard him pass.

"She is alone, now," said Father Ludovic, "I will send you to her."

My mind had strained to Stephania's presence with the first footsteps
that told me of their separation; and it needed but a wave of his hand
to unlink the spirit-wings from my weary frame. I was present with
her.

I struggled for a moment, but in vain, to see her face. Its expression
was as visible as my hand in the sun, but no feature. The mind I had
read was close to me, in a presence of consciousness; and, in points,
here and there, brighter, bolder, and further-reaching than I had
altogether believed. She was unutterably pure--a spirit without a
spot--and I remained near her with a feeling as if my forehead were
pressed down to the palms of my hands, in homage mixed with sorrow,
for I should have more recognized this in my waking study of her
nature.

A moment more--a trembling effort, as if to read what were written to
record my companionship for eternity--and a vague image of myself came
out in shadow--clearer now, and still clearer, enlarging to the
fullness of her mind. She thought wholly and only of that image I then