A soft step whispered on the stones; he heard the mare whinny, her trappings clinked. “Now!” he muttered, and, drawing his blade, parted the curtain noiselessly and looked forth. In the very act he staggered and flung his hand across his face.
His wife—no question of it! But so etherealised, so remote from his carnal conception of her, that his soul shrank abashed before the spirit his ruthless challenge had evoked. Her hair was down, veiling her from crown to pearly thigh. A nimbus, painted by the sunlight in its gossamer, seemed to hang about her head. Through golden mist budded a rose of lips, a thought of blue eyes flowered, like little eyes of heaven seen through a haze of dawn. So glorified in her sacrifice, seen, but unseeing, she went by him and disappeared, silent as a figure in a glass. He stood like one turned suddenly to stone.
Full ten minutes must have passed before, coming again to consciousness, as it were, he bethought himself that she would be returning in a little, her task accomplished.
“Introibo ad altare Mariæ!” he sighed, amazed. “I will pray my love’s forgiveness. I am not worthy to kiss her little latchet.”
He clanked his sword into its scabbard, and, going like a blind man, sought the chapel. The lamp before the altar shone like a star; all the dusk air seemed thick with scent of roses; and before the shrine of the Virgin lay his wife prostrate on the stones.
He stood a moment as if death-smitten; the blood about his heart seemed to stagnate and leave him grey as ashes. Then fury was born in him, and flamed to fire.
“A trick!” he stormed within. “She hath bribed another to take her place.”
He strode roughly forward, bent, and seized the body to his arms. She never moved or spoke. Looking in her face, he saw its eyes closed, its cheek stone-white. No breath came from the parted lips.
“Dead!” he whispered. “My God! have I killed her?”
Raising his eyes in anguish, he saw the shrine empty. The painted figure of the Virgin proper to it was gone. At that moment a sound of horse’s hoofs striking upon the stones outside came to his ear. She was returning! She—who? An awe as of immortality smote into his veins. The body in his arms stirred, and a deep sigh issued from its lips.