"Alack! what other means? Wouldst put me to thine own door, being the stronger?""Nay, Margaret, well thou knowest I would suffer many deaths rather than put force on thee; thy sweet body is dearer to me than my own; but a million times dearer to me are our immortal souls, both thine and mine.I have withstood this direst temptation of all long enow.Now I must fly it: farewell! farewell!"He made to the door, and had actually opened it and got half out, when she darted after and caught him by the arm.
"Nay, then another must speak for me.I thought to reward thee for yielding to me; but unkind that thou art, I need his help I find;turn then this way one moment."
"Nay, nay."
"But I say ay! And then turn thy back on us an thou canst." She somewhat relaxed her grasp, thinking he would never deny her so small a favour.But at this he saw his opportunity and seized it.
"Fly, Clement, fly!" he almost shrieked; and his religious enthusiasm giving him for a moment his old strength, he burst wildly away from her, and after a few steps bounded over the little stream and ran beside it, but finding he was not followed stopped, and looked back.
She was lying on her face, with her hands spread out.
Yes, without meaning it, he had thrown her down and hurt her.
When he saw that, he groaned and turned back a step; but suddenly, by another impulse flung himself into the icy water instead.
"There, kill my body!" he cried, "but save my soul!"Whilst he stood there, up to his throat in liquid ice, so to speak, Margaret uttered one long, piteous moan, and rose to her knees.
He saw her as plain almost as in midday.Saw her pale face and her eyes glistening; and then in the still night he heard these words:
"Oh, God! Thou that knowest all, Thou seest how I am used.Forgive me then! For I will not live another day." With this she suddenly started to her feet, and flew like some wild creature, wounded to death, close by his miserable hiding-place, shrieking: "CRUEL! -CRUEL! - CRUEL! - CRUEL!"
What manifold anguish may burst from a human heart in a single syllable.There were wounded love, and wounded pride, and despair, and coming madness all in that piteous cry.Clement heard, and it froze his heart with terror and remorse, worse than the icy water chilled the marrow of his bones.
He felt he had driven her from him for ever, and in the midst of his dismal triumph, the greatest he had won, there came an almost incontrollable impulse to curse the Church, to curse religion itself, for exacting such savage cruelty from mortal man.At last he crawled half dead out of the water, and staggered to his den.
"I am safe here," he groaned; "she will never come near me again;unmanly, ungrateful wretch that I am." And he flung his emaciated, frozen body down on the floor, not without a secret hope that it might never rise thence alive.
But presently he saw by the hour-glass that it was past midnight.
On this, he rose slowly and took off his wet things, and moaning all the time at the pain he had caused her he loved, put on the old hermit's cilice of bristles, and over that his breastplate.He had never worn either of these before, doubting himself worthy to don the arms of that tried soldier.But now he must give himself every aid; the bristles might distract his earthly remorse by bodily pain, and there might be holy virtue in the breastplate.
Then he kneeled down and prayed God humbly to release him that very night from the burden of the flesh.Then he lighted all his candles, and recited his psalter doggedly; each word seemed to come like a lump of lead from a leaden heart, and to fall leaden to the ground; and in this mechanical office every now and then he moaned with all his soul.In the midst of which he suddenly observed a little bundle in the corner he had not seen before in the feebler light, and at one end of it something like gold spun into silk.
He went to see what it could be; and he had no sooner viewed it closer, than he threw up his hands with rapture."It is a seraph,"he whispered, "a lovely seraph.Heaven hath witnessed my bitter trial, and approves my cruelty; and this flower of the skies is sent to cheer me, fainting under my burden."He fell on his knees, and gazed with ecstasy on its golden hair, and its tender skin, and cheeks like a peach.
"Let me feast my sad eyes on thee ere thou leavest me for thine ever-blessed abode, and my cell darkens again at thy parting, as it did at hers."With all this, the hermit disturbed the lovely visitor.He opened wide two eyes, the colour of heaven; and seeing a strange figure kneeling over him, he cried piteously, "MUMMA! MUM-MA!" And the tears began to run down his little cheeks.
Perhaps, after all, Clement, who for more than six months had not looked on the human face divine, estimated childish beauty more justly than we can; and in truth, this fair northern child, with its long golden hair, was far more angelic than any of our imagined angels.But now the spell was broken.