Mark, are you ill?"

"Oh, do what I ask," he begged. "Once I prayed for you here. Pray for me
now."

At that moment she understood, and putting her hands to her eyes she
stumbled blindly toward the ruined church of the two Maries, heavily
too, because she was encumbered by her holy garb. When she was gone and
the last rustle of her footsteps had died away upon the mid-summer
silence, Mark buried his body in the golden flowers.

"How can I ever look any of them in the face again?" he cried aloud.
"Small wonder that yesterday I was so futile. Small wonder indeed! And
of all women, to think that I should fall in love with Esther. If I had
fallen in love with her four years ago . . . but now when she is going
to be professed . . . suddenly without any warning . . . without any
warning . . . yet perhaps I did love her in those days . . . and was
jealous. . . ."

And even while Mark poured forth his horror of himself he held her image
to his heart.

"I thought she was a ghost because she was dead to me, not because she
was dead to them. She is not a ghost to them. And is she to me?"

He leapt to his feet, listening.

"Should she come back," he thought with beating heart. "Should she come
back . . . I love her . . . she hasn't taken her final vows . . . might
she not love me? No," he shouted at the top of his voice. "I will not do
as my father did . . . I will not . . . I will not. . . ."

Mark felt sure of himself again: he felt as he used to feel as a little
boy when his mother entered on a shaft of light to console his childish
terrors. When he came to the ruined chapel and saw Esther standing with
uplifted palms before the image of St. Mary Magdalene long since put
back upon the pedestal from which it had been flung by the squire of
Rushbrooke Grange, Mark was himself again.

"My dear," Esther cried, impulsively taking his hand. "You frightened
me. What was the matter?"

He did not answer for a moment or two, because he wanted her to hold his
hand a little while longer, so much time was to come when she would
never hold it.

"Whenever I dip my hand in cold water," he said at last, "I shall think
of you. Why did you say that about the demons of the night?"

She dropped his hand in comprehension.

"You're disgusted with me," he murmured. "I'm not surprised."

"No, no, you mustn't think of me like that. I'm still a very human
Esther, so human that the Reverend Mother has made me wait an extra year
to be prof