But the time had come to call a truce. The little town of Wyke Regis lay below them, looking, even to the boats lying on the sea, like a medieval map, and, for some time before they reached the road leading to the monastery, they could see streams of people passing through the great doors, which, forming a true French porte-cochère, gave access first to monastic buildings built round three sides of a vast paved courtyard, and then to the spacious gardens and orchard, where jutted out the curious miniature basilica which had been the pride and pleasure of the Popish Lord Wantley.
To Cecily's surprise, perhaps a little to her disappointment, Wantley refused to accompany her into the chapel; instead, he remained outside in the sunshine, smoking one cigarette after another, and amusing himself by deciphering the brief inscriptions on the plain slabs of stone which, sunk into the grass under and among the apple-trees, marked the graves of two generations of French monks.
Meanwhile, Cecily Wake—for they had arrived some minutes late, and Wyke Regis was now full of summer visitors—knelt down at the back of the chapel, among the curiously miscellaneous crowd of men and women generally to be found gathered together just within the doors of a Catholic place of worship.
After she had said her simple prayers, not omitting the three requests, one of which at least she trusted would be granted, according to the old belief that such a favour is extended to those who enter for the first time a duly consecrated church, Cecily, during the chanting of the Creed, allowed her eyes to wander sufficiently to enjoy the singular beauty and ornate splendour of the monastery chapel.
She soon saw which were the windows connected with Penelope's family. On the one was emblazoned the mailed figure of St. George crushing the dragon, presumably of Wantley, under his spurred heel. Obviously of the same period was the St. Cecilia, who, sitting at an old-fashioned Italian spinet, seemed to be charming the ears of two musically-minded angels. More crude in colouring, and more utilitarian in design, was the figure of good St. Louis dispensing justice under the traditional rood: this last window, as the girl was aware, was that which the young man, who had refused to come into the chapel, had raised to the memory of his own father.
Just as the bell rang, warning those not in sight of the high-altar that the most solemn portion of the Mass was about to begin, there arose, close to where Cecily was kneeling with her face buried in her hands, the loud, discordant cry of an ailing child.
Various pious persons at once turned and threw shocked glances at a woman who, alone seated among the kneeling throng, and herself nodding with fatigue, was shifting from one arm to another a fat curly-headed little boy, whom Cecily, now well versed in such lore, instinctively guessed to be about two years old.
A few minutes later, Wantley, tired of waiting in the deserted orchard, pushed open the red-baize door.
At first he saw nothing; then, when his eyes had grown accustomed to the dimmer light, he became aware that at the end of a little lane of people, and outlined against a rose-coloured marble pillar, stood the blue-clad figure of a young woman holding to her breast a little child, the two thus forming the immemorial group which has kept its hold on the imagination of Christendom throughout the ages.
Cecily was swaying rhythmically, now forward, now backward, her head bent over that of the child. She did not see Wantley, being wholly absorbed in her task of quieting and comforting the little creature now cradled in her arms; but he, as he looked at her, felt as if he then saw her for the first time.