"Yes, very well. Why?"
The rest was soon told. Denys's bridegroom had found her out at last, and carried her off to some lonely house, she did not rightly know where, first marrying her before a village priest. Here they lived for a few—a very few—happy weeks, meaning as soon as the heat of pursuit was over to go abroad. But alas, one day the poor man ventured forth too far, was seen, tracked, and their concealment found out. The poor young man was killed before his wife's eyes, and Denys was carried back to her convent.
"I expected nothing but the walled up cell, and the 'part in peace,'" continued Denys, "but I did not care; I knew it would be soon over at the worst. But it was not to be. Loveday, do you remember a range of rooms which opened back from the Mother Superior's room—perhaps you never saw them."
"Never till the day I left the house."
"In one of those rooms I found myself when I recovered my senses, and there I lived for ten years, never seeing a face till my babe was born—my little Loveday. They were kind to me then, and my child lived and seemed like to thrive. But when she was a month old, she drooped and died all in one day like a broken flower. It was as well. Thank Heaven I can now say so. They had given her some of their saints' names, but I called her Loveday after you, child, for I always loved you. She was a sweet little thing, the picture of her father. Oh how empty were my arms and heart for many a long day!"
I was weeping too much to speak as that poor mother bent her head and kissed me.
"I know not how the time passed after that for a long while. I took no note of it, but at last one morning I waked from a blessed dream of my husband and child in Paradise, and, looking up at the high grated lattice, I saw the sun shining. I had a joint-stool and table, and with their help, I climbed up and looked upon the world once more. The sisters were walking in the orchard, and I could see the very tree where Harry made himself known to me. The fountains of the deep were broken up then, which had been fast sealed in all my trouble. I had not shed a tear before, but now they came in a flood, and with them, some of the bitterness of my grief seemed to pass away, and the cloud lifted from my mind so I could understand and remember. When the mother came with my meals, I made bold to ask her for some work. She seemed pleased—she was always kind in her ways, though she rarely spoke to me—and from that day I had plenty to do."
"One day Mother Joanna brought me a heavier basket than usual, and came into the cell instead of passing it through the tour. I rose as she entered, but she bade me sit down again."
"'Denys!' said she, after a little silence, 'do you know what is the usual fate of a nun who breaks her convent vows?'"
"I bowed, thinking with a kind of dull horror of all I had heard of such things."