"Why, I dreamed of it last night," she said very solemnly.

"You dreamed of it, Alice?" he echoed. She was called, she had told

him, Alice of the Hermitage.

"Yes, yes. A white bird and two hen-harriers. Ah, and there was more.

You have not yet done all. You have not yet begun!" She was full of

the thing.

"By my faith, I have wrung the necks of the pair of them," said

Prosper. "I know not how they can expect more of me than that."

"Listen," said Alice of the Hermitage, "the bird will be again chased,

again wounded. Morgraunt is full of hawks. You will see her again. My

dream was very precise. You will see her again; but this time the

chase will be long, and achievement only at the peril of your own

honour. But it seems that you shall win in the end what you have

thought to have won already, and the wound in the breast will be

staunched."

"Hum," said Prosper. "Now you shall tell me what I ought to do, how I

ought to begin. For you know the saw--'The sooner begun, the sooner

done.'"

"Oh, sir,". cries she, "you shall ride forward in the name of God,

remembering your manhood and the vows you made when you took up your

arms." She blushed as she spoke, kindling with her thoughts.

"I will do that," said Prosper, kindled in his turn. And so he left

her, and travelled all day towards Malbank Saint Thorn. He lay at

night in the open wood, not far, as he judged, from Spurnt Heath, upon

whose westernmost border ran Wan; there, or near by, he looked to find

the Abbey.

He spent the night at least better than did Dom Galors, whose thoughts

turned equally to Spurnt Heath. That strenuous man had taken the

Abbot's counsel to bed with him, a restless partner. An inordinate

partner also it proved to be, not content to keep the monk awake.

Turning every traffic of his mind to its own advantage, it shook out

the bright pinions of adventure over the dim corridors of Holy Thorn,

and with every pulse of the ordering bell came a reiteration of its

urgency. All night long, through all the task work of the next

morning, the thought was with him--"By means of this woman I may be

free. Free!" he cried. "I may be set up on high through her. Lord of

this land and patron of Holy Thorn; a maker and unmaker of abbots to

whom now I must bow my knees. Is it nothing to be master of a lovely

wife? Ha, is it nothing to rule a broad fee? A small thing to have

abbots kiss my hands? Lord of the earth! is this not worth a broken

vow, which in any case I have broken before? Oh, Isoult la Desirous,

if I desired you before when you went torn and shamefaced through the

mire, what shall I say to you going in silk, in a litter, with a

crown, Isoult la Desirée!" He called her name over and over, Isoult la

Desirée, la Moult-Desirée, and felt his head spinning.




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