She looked at him, wondering, but answered what he wanted, and then waited, in silence, praying that he would ask another question. He sat, however, with his head bent over so that she could not see his face, and he said nothing more. Laure sighed, looked up into the wintry sky, looked down to the snow-covered earth, felt the pall of her frozen life closing around her once again, and then got a sudden, blind determination that that life should not smother the little, creeping flame that had to-day been lighted in her heart. Looking sidewise at Flammecœur, who sat bowed upon his horse, she whispered,—
“Shall we—see—each other yet again?”
“By all the saints—and God—we shall! We shall!”
“Alas, Angelique, we are late for vespers! Haste!” cried Eloise, in the same moment.
Laure sent the spur into her palfrey, which leaped forward like the stone from a sling. Eloise followed after her at a terrifying pace, and the troubadour and his page stood and watched them till they were lost among the trees. The two reached the priory gate almost together; and before they were admitted, Eloise, her face flushed and her eyes shining, whispered imploringly to Laure: “Confess it not! Confess it not! Else shall we never go again!”
To this plea Laure had no time to make reply; but the other, seeing her manner, had, somehow, no fear that she would betray herself, and with her the delicious love-prattlings of Yvain.
They found vespers just at an end, and were reproved for their tardy return. Eloise retreated to her cell at once, to repeat her penitential Aves of the morning, and Laure retired ostensibly for the same purpose.
Once alone in her cell, the young girl took off her riding-garments,—the unusual cap and veil, boots, gloves, and spur,—and put them carefully away in her oaken chest. Afterwards she straightened her bliault and her hair, set her image of the Virgin straight upon its shelf, and moved the priedieu a little more accurately between the door and her bed. Then, standing up, she looked about her. There was nothing more to do. She was alone with her heart, and she could no longer escape from thinking. So she sat down on the bed, folded her hands upon her knees, and in this wise twisted out the meaning of her day, till she found in her secret soul that the unspeakable, the unholy, the most glorious, had come to her, to fill the great void of her empty life.
