“Hearken to me, maiden,” said Victorinus, “and though I preach the right abasement of woman, doubt not that I love you and that Christ loves you!... I would tell you, if I may find the tongue wherewith to praise her, of a Christian woman with whom I had acquaintance one time in Milan, the mother of a man, who, when he has unravelled wholly the tissue of his own errors, may gain a great name in the Church of the Living God. No saintlier might you have found than this Monica, nor no purer example to all women! I have heard another woman and a wife say that Monica, advising many wives together one day, did say this to them. ‘From that time when you have heard read to you the marriage writings, do you hold them, according to God’s will, as indentures whereby you are made servants, and so, keeping in memory your condition, do you in no place nor time set yourself in opposition to your husband. Only,’ she said on, ‘in so doing, you must in no-wise betray nor slackly serve Christ, who is your Master over your master.’—Truly, child, the Church could have said no different nor better!”
“I do not understand,” said the barbarian woman. “Yet there is something that comes up in my mind—”
She sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, her eyes upon the earth.
Victorinus watched her somewhat uneasily. Presently he began to speak of the just virtues of women, and he spoke in gold and honey. “More and more,” he said, “you the barbarians and we the civilized will touch and clasp and mingle. Never too soon can right notions steal among you—”
He was not sure that Alleda was listening. She seemed sunk in herself. “Child!” he said sharply.
She dropped her hands at his tone, and he saw that she was smiling. “Is Alaran better than me? Christ is better. But is Alaran? I think that we are the same. Why, then—”
Iron came into Victorinus’s voice. “Will you deny Scripture and set your reason against Almighty God’s—”
The forest murmured, the white clouds sailed overhead, thistledown in the air, and the air thistledown in the ether. At the bottom of the glade, taking and holding the human eye, stood the little church, and from the garden beside came the sound of the brethren at work.
Midsummer was here, and Alleda and Alaran were wed. Autumn came, winter followed, spring swept in song and colour over the land.
“You believe—you believe!” said Alleda.