CHAPTER IV
"The perfect beauty of the body and soul thou saved
In thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity.
Was the trial sore?—temptation sharp? Thank God a second time.
Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestaled in triumph?"—R. B. BROWNING.
A night of stupor, in which Evelyn lay wide-eyed, staring out into the darkness, feeling the close presence of the mountains, whose solemn force penetrated even her bare bedroom. A day of comparative peace followed; of quiet detachment. The tranquil life was broken only by the sound of the convent bell.
At the back of the convent was a garden of roses which reminded her of the Valley of Vision in the Bible—roses, miraculously brought, said the legend, from a great distance. They had once bloomed white, but a drop of our Lord's blood, flowing from the Cross at Calvary, had stained them red. The rosery was backed by long lines of hills, each separate hill converged to a point; there were terraces full of perfume and colour, supernatural in their silence. Everything about her breathed prayer and sacrifice. In the chapel, of course, the twin forces concentrated; one expected as much—but they were visible, too, in the quietude of the deep ravines, bordered with ilex and box, the huge gorges, and in the little hermitage, to which a way was found by means of a path most perilous. Here—at the Cueva de Garin—she found a painted figure on the wall depicting a hermit who, having travelled there on hands and knees, lived on in that position till his death.
Only the greatest love, only the greatest suffering can be laid on the altar of Monserrato. It is like the corridor of Eternity; immortal life is only just beyond.
The hours crawled by sluggishly, wearily; Evelyn scarcely knew how. The monks offered the actual lodging free, but near at hand there was a fonda where simple fare could easily be obtained. It was not easy to think of the little ordinary conveniences of life in Monserrato; they scarcely seemed to matter; and Evelyn, setting out early next afternoon, began to make her pilgrimage towards the summit of the mountains, with labouring breath and faltering footsteps, unmindful of the fact that she had not tasted food for many hours.
She reached her goal only when sunset had painted the very ground she stood upon with roseate colours. Between herself and the highest heaven there stretched a gossamer veil of gold. And here at last was the reality for which she longed. She felt as though, had she but faith enough, she could have been carried through the whirling spaces upwards and onwards to a place of rest whose beauties were undreamed of by even the purest saint in the little monastery below.
She stayed there for a long while—longer even than she knew. The light failed. She rose slowly to her feet. Descent was difficult; she knew now how weak she was. Now and again she stumbled. Over her eyes there was a strange dimness, the gradual decay of thought. Presently limbs and brain alike refused their offices. She felt as though she were being taken up bodily into the grip of some great grey, mocking Shape that held her to itself and paralyzed her. But she pressed on, guided by some unswerving instinct, to the door of the convent. There, and there only, she dropped in the act of pulling at the bell.
Some one came; some one carried her into her room. She revived when water was poured on her forehead and her hands were laved. They left her. After a while she recovered sufficiently to undress. Presently all was still.
There was no sound in the convent now, not even in the chapel; the dull droning of monks in their lonely cells, chanting offices of penitence and remorse, did not reach her. And now in this infinitely lonely hour, alike afar from friend and foe, a kinder form seemed to come close, one which she did not recognize, yet which made clear those hidden things about which she still feared to ask.