Then the ring of horses' hoofs upon the paving stones.
She was trembling from head to foot, yet she rose and went to the window overlooking the courtyard.
Mark was shutting the gates. Beaumont held a neglected stirrup cup, and laughed as he drained it himself. Zachary, stout and pompous, was mounting the steps.
Hugh, her husband—Hugh, faithful beyond belief—Hugh, her dear Knight of the Silver Shield—had ridden off alone, to the home to which he so greatly longed to take her; alone, with his hopeless love, his hungry heart, and his untarnished honour.
Turning from the window she gathered up the habit of her Order and, clasping her cross of office, mounted to her bedchamber, there to face out in solitude the hard question of the second issue.
CHAPTER LVI
THE TRUE VISION
To her bedchamber went Mora—she who had been Prioress of the White Ladies—bearing in her arms the full robes of her Order, and in her hand the jewelled cross of her high office. She went, expecting to spend hours in doubt and prayer and question before the shrine of the Virgin. But, as she pushed open the door and entered the sunlit chamber, on the very threshold she was met by a flash of inward illumination. Surely every question had already been answered; the second issue had been decided, while the first was yet wholly uncertain.
She had said she must have a divine vision. Had she not this very day been granted a two-fold vision, both human and divine; the Divine, stooping in unspeakable tenderness and comprehension to the human; the Human, upborne on the mighty pinions of pure love and stainless honour in a self-sacrifice which lifted it to the Divine?
In the lonely chapel on the mountain, she had seen her Lord. Not as the Babe, heralded by angels, worshipped by Eastern shepherds, adored by Gentile kings, throned on His Mother's knee, wise-eyed and God-like, stretching omnipotent baby hands toward this mysterious homage which was His due; accepting, with baby omniscience, the gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, which typified His mission; nor as the Divine Redeemer nailed helpless to the cross of shame; dead, that the world might live. These had been the visions of her cloistered years.