The words had scarcely left my lips before he had leaped from his horse, and, passing his arm around her, bent over her pallid face.
“Oh, this is horrible!” he murmured. “You must not die—you must not die! I have——”
His voice seemed choked with emotion and he did not finish his sentence. She spoke to him, but so softly that I could not hear the words.
I walked a few yards away and once more looked wildly round. Far away on the dark hillside I could see the white-robed figures of the lay brethren bending over their labour. Nearer there was no one. The road below was deserted and a deep stillness seemed brooding over the bare, shadowy landscape. Sick at heart I turned back and fell on my knees by my mother’s side.
We remained there, fearing almost to look into her face, until the twilight deepened upon the hills and slowly blotted out from our view even the dark cross standing up against the grey sky. Then Mr. Ravenor leaned for a moment forward and a low groan escaped from his lips. It told me what I dreaded—that my mother was dead!
CHAPTER XXI.
A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.
The paroxysm of my grief passed slowly away, and I rose to my feet and looked around with streaming eyes. Mr. Ravenor was still by my side, and together we carried my mother back to the monastery. The news of our approach had preceded us, and long before we reached our journey’s end the solemn minute-bell was tolling out to the silent night, awakening strange echoes in the hills and finding a reverberation of its mournfulness in my heart.
Austere and impressive as the great bare front of the monastery had always appeared to me, it had never seemed so cold and desolate as when our melancholy little procession wound round the Hill of Calvary and slowly approached the entrance. The gloom of a winter’s evening was hanging around the building, which, with never a ray of light from any part, looked like a habitation of the dead—a gigantic vault.
But suddenly, as we drew near, the front door was slowly opened and the dark figure of a monk, holding above his head a lighted taper, stood on the steps and in a low monotone repeated a Latin prayer. When he ceased there was a moment’s silence, and then from the chapel there came the sound of deep voices chanting slowly in solemn unison the Miserere.
The remainder of that night seems like a dream to me now, of which I can recall but little. But I remember that, long past midnight, when I had thrown myself down upon the stone floor of the guest-chamber, I heard soft steps and the rustle of garments approaching me, and, looking up, I saw the sweetest face I ever beheld in man or woman looking down into mine from the deep folds of a monk’s cowl.