“Ay so,” admitted Isabel.
“I am sorry for thee, Cousin!” whispered Maude, her eyes full of tears.
“Sorry!” said Isabel.
“Sorry!” repeated Avice. “When I have ensured mine own salvation, and won mine husband’s soul from Purgatory, and heaped up great store of merit belike!—Woman, I live but of bread and water, with here and there a lettuce leaf; a draught of milk of Sundays, but meat never saving holydays. I sleep never beyond three hours of a night, and of a Friday night not at all. I creep round our chapel on my bare knees every Friday morrow and Saturday even, and do lick a cross in the dust at every shrine. I tell our Lady’s litany morrow and even. Sorry! When every sister of our house doth reckon me a very saint!”
A vision rose before Maude’s eyes, of a man clad in blue fringes and phylacteries, who stood, head upright, in the Holy Place, and thanked God that he was not as other men. But she only said—
“O Avice!—what doth God reckon thee?”
Isabel stared at her.
“The like, of force!” said Avice, with a sneer.
“Avice, I deemed thee once not far from the kingdom of God. But I find thee further off than of old time.”
“Thou art bereft of thy wits, sure!” said Avice, contemptuously.