groaned Alleyne. "I pray
that I may have more strength."

"And to what end?" she asked sharply. "If you are, as I understand, to
shut yourself forever in your cell within the four walls of an abbey,
then of what use would it be were your prayer to be answered?"

"The use of my own salvation."

She turned from him with a pretty shrug and wave. "Is that all?" she
said. "Then you are no better than Father Christopher and the rest of
them. Your own, your own, ever your own! My father is the king's man,
and when he rides into the press of fight he is not thinking ever of the
saving of his own poor body; he recks little enough if he leave it on
the field. Why then should you, who are soldiers of the Spirit, be
ever moping or hiding in cell or in cave, with minds full of your own
concerns, while the world, which you should be mending, is going on its
way, and neither sees nor hears you? Were ye all as thoughtless of your
own souls as the soldier is of his body, ye would be of more avail to
the souls of others."

"There is sooth in what you say, lady," Alleyne answered; "and yet I
scarce can see what you would have the clergy and the church to do."

"I would have them live as others and do men's work in the world,
preaching by their lives rather than their words. I would have them come
forth from their lonely places, mix with the borel folks, feel the pains
and the pleasures, the cares and the rewards, the temptings and the
stirrings of the common people. Let them toil and swinken, and labor,
and plough the land, and take wives to themselves----"

"Alas! alas!" cried Alleyne aghast, "you have surely sucked this poison
from the man Wicliffe, of whom I have heard such evil things."

"Nay, I know him not. I have learned it by looking from my own chamber
window and marking these poor monks of the priory, their weary life,
their profitless round. I have asked myself if the best which can be
done with virtue is to shut it within high walls as though it were some
savage creature. If the good will lock themselves up, and if the wicked
will still wander free, then alas for the world!"

Alleyne looked at her in astonishment, for her cheek was flushed, her
eyes gleaming, and her whole pose full of eloquence and conviction. Yet
in an instant she had changed again to her old expression of merriment
leavened with mischief.

"Wilt do what I ask?" said she.

"What is it, lady?"

"Oh, most ungallant clerk! A true knight would never