Ursula, cold fool, was instantly affronted.
“What!” and she seemed to smack her lips with unction, “you, who have worn the scarlet, speak thus insolently to me! It is plain that you have no sense of shame. Hard words indeed are what you need, young woman, the bread of bitterness and the waters of affliction. Pity for your soul moves me to speak the truth.”
The flush had faded from Denise’s face. She lay there very pale and still, as though suffering Ursula’s harsh words to pass over her like the wind.
“How is it, madame,” she said at last, “that you believe so much that is bad of me?”
Ursula had her answer ready, the answer such a woman was destined to produce.
“Earl Simon’s knight warned me, as was but right and honest.”
“Aymery!”
“Sir Aymery, would be more fitting. It was he who besought me to take you in, knowing your misery, and the madness that sin must create in the mind. Pray to God that he may be blessed for snatching you from the devil, and for bringing you here, where, Heaven being willing, we will humble and chasten you.”
Denise lay there as though Ursula had taken Marpasse’s knife and stricken her, this time to the heart. She had nothing to say to the Prioress. The woman’s hard morality had broken and bruised her re-born pride and hope.
Ursula rose, and stood beside the bed.