Stott could scarce believe his eyes, for he was but too ready to believe that Robert Annys was as the usual run of the priests he encountered, ever ready to preach, but not so ready to practise.
In the sudden religious exaltation that swept over him Annys was totally unconscious of his cruelty toward the woman whom he had just clasped in his arms. He could think only of his own wonderful escape. Rose rested on the ground as she had been flung, half reclining, half kneeling, dazed at the sudden change that had come over the ardent lover of a minute before. The uppermost thought in her mind was how handsome he looked in his new-found indignation. His eyes, at other times the pale blue eyes of a dreamer, now scintillated as the dark blue night sky, when the air is crisp and clear and thrilling with the glory of the stars. Deep down within her lay a discontent that all his passion for her had awakened in his eyes no such splendor. She longed to be able to awaken that light in his eyes purely for herself alone; she was fascinated by the peculiar change it wrought in his face; she found a certain pleasure in watching him impersonally, quite as if the object of his indignation were some one else and not herself at all.
As he drew himself up and looked down upon the girl, her beauty seemed to him surely of the Evil One. There rushed over him a horror that he could have succumbed so easily to the temptation that befalls every anchorite. What? was it possible that he, Robert Annys, had been ready but an instant ago to deny his people, to draw them from their most sacred cause, ready to desert the great-hearted leader to whom he had sworn lealty, all for this woman before him? Could one fall lower than this? He had been all too willing to trail the fair robes of the Holy Spouse in the dust to keep this creature by his side. He had listened to her pleadings to make himself a great prelate solely that he might twine golden chains in her locks; he to set yet another example before the people of rapacity and sensuality within the Church, and thereby discourage by so much every honest reformer! God! what wonder that he took it all as a manifestation of the powers of the Evil One? If a mage had appeared unto him and showed him a magnet which drew to it all the trees of the forest, one by one, until they all lay upturned and useless, with great gaping wounds in the earth, where, but a moment before, they had risen proudly, would he not have declared him a sorcerer, and taken him to some holy man to have him purged of his devil? or had him burned publicly at the stake? And what else but some evil sorcery could draw a man from the place where he had been rooted deep down, could sever his heart at a blow from all the things that he held sacred, and could leave him prostrate and useless, a cause of stumbling to the wayfarer?
He had been saved at the eleventh hour by divine interposition. His soul quivered with joy at again being accepted of the Lord. He raised his crucifix high over the crouching figure of the girl, and, after crossing himself on the breast and shoulders, he launched forth the terrible words of exorcism:—
"Satan, enemy of the Faith, enemy of the human race, who brought Death into the world, who has rebelled against all justice, seducer of man, root of all evil, promoter of all vices, come out, come out, I command you, from the body of this woman. Come forth, come forth, I command you, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
At last Rose awoke to the situation. Her amused incredulity of the whole strange scene now gave way to a furious anger that he could dare so to humiliate her. That comes of permitting a priest to make love to you—you never know when the saint will conquer the mere man. And there he stood in such immaculateness, his robes gathered about him, his form drawn up as if there were contamination in her very touch. There he stood, clasping that crucifix as if the Lord on it were his own special protector. Why didn't he go and have done with it? If he was remorseful, so was she; she never wanted to see his sanctimonious face again. And there was that horrid knob-nosed pardoner looking on! How dared he! how dared he! She would reply to him, she would shame him for his cowardice, she would—What she did do was to throw herself face downward on the ground, shedding tears of exasperation and impotent rage. Annys, taking this, very naturally, for a sign of penitence, thought that his exorcism had had effect, and strode off well satisfied, leaving the pardoner to gloat over the beauty of the girl with whom he so strangely and unexpectedly found himself alone. For an instant he watched the departing figure of the young priest with jaw dropped in astonishment. Could it all have been a magnificent piece of acting? No, it was impossible; even to such a cynic as Hugo Stott, it was evident that the man had been thoroughly in earnest. He looked at the girl and his eyes glistened. He tiptoed up to her.
"The devil or no devil, 'tis a delicate morsel. I fear not the devil, nor anything else when 'tis so well disguised."
He would have liked to bury his ugly face in her white neck, but, even as he approached her, she turned suddenly and screamed so loud that instantly a number of men rushed from the fair grounds. They could only swear roundly at the disappearing figure of the pardoner, who had lost no time in making off as quickly as his long gown and clumsy form would permit.
The sight of Rose, pale and trembling, and the obvious inference of what might have happened had they been less prompt, did not tend to make them waste any love on monks and pardoners. Little enough love wasted already!