"Ah, would that this had not come to thee, Richard, my lad. Would I could undo what I have wrought, even that I had never seen thee both."
"Nay, nay, say not that!" broke out Meryl, with strong pain in his voice. "Nay, it is worth all to have called thee friend. Sure there is a tie between man and man that may be stronger than that between man and maid."
"Ah well," sighed Annys, laying one hand tenderly on the young man's shoulder, "mayhap 'tis the Cross thou must bear for Christ's sake. For surely with such a woman by my side, it will be given me to prove that a wedded priest need not be taken up with worldly matters and thoughts of the flesh. Indeed, I shall be perfected in the work of the Lord. With her help I shall be a more useful servant to my people, a kindlier comforter and a wiser adviser. Indeed, I promise thee that she will be to me as a direct gift from God."
XIII
Just at this time Rose Westel met with an adventure. She was paying a long-promised visit to some distant relatives at Ely. It was a great event in her life, for it was the first time she had left her home. Any change from the dull routine at the Bury was welcome, and yet, after the first excitement died down, she found herself unhappier than ever. The sight of Ely Castle proudly rearing its towers over the lowlands awakened in her a bitter discontent. The great grim pile stirred curious passions within her breast; there were times when she looked on it with an icy dread at her heart, for behind those curving walls rippled the waters of the moat—her mother's deathbed; there were moments when she looked on it with a secret pride that she should be descended from one of its haughty rulers. Then she would give way to frantic rage that she should not be there presiding as its mistress. It was common talk that the present Baron was only the illegitimate son of her father's brother. Why, then, had he been chosen instead of her, who stood nearer in the succession?
No one suspected her of these outbursts, for she indulged in them only where she was unobserved. This habit had grown on her since she was a little tot, and her pride had kept her from showing how keenly she felt the shrugs and significant glances of the former companions of her mother. Their prophecies concerning her future were obvious, her own idleness and wilfulness being thrown into high relief by the contrasting industry and self-sacrifice of her cousin Matilda. There had been times when she had tried her best to hate Matilda, who was always being held up to her as a model, but Matilda's own love and admiration for her made it impossible.
So for many years she had alternated between tempestuous fits of determination to fulfil the kind prophecies of her mother's generation—to be out and out wicked and have done with it—and sullen resolutions to take the veil and enter the neighboring convent. The grewsome picture of her mother's waterlogged body floating on the moat had kept her from the one, a certain leer on the Father Confessor's face had kept her from the other. She never explained to any one why she had left off going to confession, for what would have been the use? They would have said that she had inherited her mother's wickedness, so that even saints were tempted by her. She would never be judged as other maids.