The start of the dying girl before her, her flushed face as she raised herself in bed and threw herself into her friend's arms, entreating her that this old friend, the dearest friend she had ever known—ah! dearer now than ever—might be sent for at once while she had life and strength to speak to him, showed the nun that this was yet again a reacting of that old story that never tires a woman's heart. The nuns were not strict—far from it—and, even had Mary already taken the veil, the sisters would have thought little blame of her even for remembering that once she dreamt of another bridegroom than the heavenly Spouse. The nun had promised to send early in the morning to Lord Cheney, who, no doubt, knew the abode of his friend; and Mary, as she finished telling all this in her low and weak speech, lay still and quiet, looking upon her friend almost with as calm and peaceful a glance of her absorbing eyes as when she had looked at him in the garden parlour at Gidding years ago. He himself said little; it was not his words she wanted, could he have spoken them. That he was there by her, looking up in her face, holding her hand, was quite enough. At last she said,—
"And that mission to the Papist murderers, Johnny, you did not wish to bring them into England of your own accord or only as a plot of the Jesuits? Surely you were but the servant of one whom you could not discover."
"I had the King's own commission for all I did, for every word I said," said Inglesant eagerly—"a commission written by himself, and signed in my presence, which he gave me himself. That was the paper the Lord Biron would not burn."
"I knew it must be so, Johnny; my uncle told me it must be so. It seems to me you have served a hard master, though you do not complain. We heard about the scaffold at Charing Cross. Will you serve your heavenly Master as well as you have served your King?"
"I desire to serve Him, am seeking to serve Him even now, but I do not find the way. Tell me how I can serve Him, Mary, and I swear to you I will do whatever you shall say."
"He must teach you, Johnny, not I. I doubt not that you follow Him now, will serve Him hereafter much better than I could ever show you—could ever do myself. Whatever men may think of the path you have already chosen, no one can say you have not walked in it steadily to the end. Only walk in this way as steadily, Johnny,—only follow your heart as unflinchingly, when it points you to Him. I will do nothing night and day while I live, Johnny, but pray to Jesus that He may lead you to Himself."
The old familiar glamour that shed such a holy radiance on the woods and fields of Gidding, now, to Inglesant's senses, filled the little convent room. The light of heaven that entered the open window with the perfume of the hawthorn, was lost in the diviner radiance that shone from this girl's face into the depths of his being, and bathed the place where she was in light. His heart ceased to beat, and he lay, as in a trance, to behold the glory of God.
CHAPTER XIX.
Inglesant was present at the funeral in the cemetery of the convent, and caused a white marble cross to be set over the grave. He remained in his lodgings several days, melancholy and alone. His whole nature was shaken to the foundation, and life was made more holy and solemn to him than ever before. The burden of worldly matters became intolerable, and the coil that had been about his life so long grew more oppressive till it seemed to stifle his soul. He desired to listen to the Divine Voice, but the voice seemed silent, or to speak only the language of worldly plans and schemes. He desired to live a life of holiness, but the only life that seemed possible to him was one of business and intrigue. What was this life of holiness that men ought to lead? Could it be followed in the world? Or must he retire to some monastic solitude to cultivate it; and was it certain that it would flourish even there? It seemed more and more impossible for him to find it; he was repulsed and turned back upon his worldly life at every attempt he made. He almost resolved to give up the Jesuit, and to seek some more spiritual guide. He remembered Cressy, who had become a Romanist, and a Benedictine monk of the Monastery at Douay, and was at that moment in Paris.
When Inglesant had been last in Oxford, the secession of Hugh Paulin Cressy, as he had been named at the font in Wakefield Church,—Serenus de Cressy, as he called himself in religion,—had created a painful and disturbed impression. A Fellow of Merton, the chaplain and friend of Lord Strafford, and afterwards of Lord Falkland, a quick and accurate disputant, a fine and persuasive preacher, a man of sweet and attractive nature, and of natural and acquired refinement,—he was one of the leaders of the highest thought and culture of the University. When it was known, therefore, that this man, so admired and beloved, had seceded to Popery, the interest and excitement were very great, and one of Archbishop Usher's friends writes to him in pathetic words of the loss of this bright ornament of the Church, and of the danger to others which his example might cause.