"You do not know her name, Baron?"
"She is the Chained Virgin of Saint Thorn, I tell you. She has no
other name. She sits in a throne in choir, pale as milk, with burning
grey eyes as big as passion-flowers! She is a chained Andromeda on the
rock of Peter. Be my Perseus!"
"Hum," said Galors, half to himself, "hum! Yes, I will go at once."
"My dear friend----"
"Not a word more, Baron. Go home to Starning, go where you like, and
wait. If you see me again the lady will be with me."
"You shall not find me ungrateful, I promise," cried Malise, going
out.
"Damn your gratitude," said Galors, when the door was shut.
A mortified Perseus in drab cloak and slouch hat, he went to Malbank
next day and verified his prognosis. The Abbot sang Mass, his old
colleagues huddled in choir; the place echoed with the chastened
snuffling he knew so well. Galors had no sentiment to pour over them.
Standing, bowing, genuflecting, signing himself at the bidding of the
bell, he had no eyes for any but the frail apparition whose crown of
black seemed to weigh her toward the pavement. The change wrought in
her by a year's traffic might have shocked, as the eyes might have
haunted him; but she was nothing but a symbol by now. A frayed ensign,
she stood for an earldom and a fee. The time had been when her beauty
had bewitched him; that was when she went flesh and blood, sun-
browned, full of the sap of untamed desires. Now she was a ghost with
a dowry; stricken, but holding a fief.
He judged the chain, the time, the place, the chances. He had three
men. It was enough. Next Sunday he would act. Then for the forest
roads and High March!
That next Sunday was Lammas Day and a solemn feast. All Malbank was in
the nave, a beaten and weather-scarred bundle of drabs packed in one
corner under the great vaulting ribs. Within the dark aisles the
chapels gloomed, here and there a red lamp made darkness darker; but
the high altar was a blaze of lights. The faces, scared or sharp-set,
of the worshippers fronted the glory open-mouthed, but all dull.
Hunger makes a bad altar-flame; when it burns not sootily it fires the
fabric.
Afterwards came something which they understood--Isoult between her
two women, the monk behind. A girl chained by the middle to a monk--
Oh, miracle! She sat very still in her carved chair, folding her
patient hands. So thin, so frail, so transparent she was, they thought
her pure spirit, a whisp of gossamered breath, or one of those gauzy
sublimations which the winter will make of a dead leaf. The cowed
audience watched her wonderfully; some of the women snivelled. The
white monks, the singing boys, the banners and tapers, Ceremoniar,
Deacon, Subdeacon, the vested Abbot himself, passed like a shining
cloud through the nave. All their light came from the Chained Virgin
of Saint Thorn. And then the Mass began.