What could it avail her that she was a woman and could dream dreams? The torch was quenched, the wine spilt from the jar. There was no other path than this even though it was strewn with thorns. She must follow it to the end, forgetting that other life, and yet remembering it, hating the world, yet thinking of one heart that might have stood for the whole world. If she escaped bitterness and shame, surely she should be grateful, and contented with such mercies. There was no other life for her but this one of self-renunciation.
Slowly, and very sadly she put on the white shift and tunic, emblems of what the world believed in. She bound up her hair and the touch of it brought back the memory of that night, a memory that stung like an asp at the breast. When she had dressed herself, she knelt on the threshold to pray until the midnight offering. But her misery fled forth into other ways, and she thought of man before she thought of God.
Hours had passed, and there was a sense of stir somewhere over yonder where the abbey lay. A bell began to toll, slowly and sonorously, the first clang of its clapper sounding a note of dismal sanctity. Torches were being lit, for a faint glare began to rise above the orchards and the thickets, and Denise, kneeling on the bare stones, knew that the hour of her renunciation was near.
The sound of their coming was still a sound in the distance when Denise heard the trampling of a horse along the road that ran not very far from her cell. It ceased suddenly, and a murmur of voices came up to her in the darkness. Then all was still again save for the tolling of the bell, and the solemn chanting which told her that Dom Silvius and the Brethren who had charge of her were coming with torches over the hill.
Now Denise had risen and gone out into the green close when the trampling of hoofs came along the thorn hedge with the creaking of harness, and the snorting of a horse. Denise stood still, holding her breath as she listened. The moon had gone, and the only light was the glare of the torches that were topping the hill.
Denise heard a voice calling.
“Denise,” it said; “Sancta Denise.”
The trampling of hoofs had ceased, and there was silence save for the chanting of the monks upon the hill top. Something moved beyond the hedge, and Denise heard the latch of the gate lifted. The heart stood still in her a moment. Someone was near her in the close, for she heard the sound of breathing, and the rustling of feet in the grass.
A man’s whisper came to her out of the dark.
“Denise!”