hand; and anon, as though wishing to chase
With one angry gesture his own thoughts aside,
He sprang up, brush'd past her, and bitterly cried,
"No!--Constance wed a Vargrave!"--I cannot consent!"
Then up rose the Soeur Seraphine.
The low tent
In her sudden uprising, seem'd dwarf'd by the height
From which those imperial eyes pour'd the light
Of their deep silent sadness upon him.
No wonder
He felt, as it were, his own stature shrink under
The compulsion of that grave regard! For between
The Duc de Luvois and the Soeur Seraphine
At that moment there rose all the height of one soul
O'er another; she look'd down on him from the whole
Lonely length of a life. There were sad nights and days,
There were long months and years in that heart-searching gaze;
And her voice, when she spoke, with sharp pathos thrill'd through
And transfix'd him.
"Eugene de Luvois, but for you,
I might have been now--not this wandering nun,
But a mother, a wife--pleading, not for the son
Of another, but blessing some child of my own,
His,--the man's that I once loved!... Hush! that which is done
I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. That's best
Which God sends. 'Twas his will: it is mine. And the rest
Of that riddle I will not look back to. He reads
In your heart--He that judges of all thoughts and deeds.
With eyes, mine forestall not! This only I say:
You have not the right (read it, you, as you may!)
To say... 'I am the wrong'd."'...
"Have I wrong'd thee?--wrong'd THEE!"
He falter'd, "Lucile, ah, Lucile!"
"Nay, not me,"
She murmur'd, "but man! The lone nun standing here
Has no claim upon earth, and is pass'd from the sphere
Of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. But she,
The dead woman, Lucile, she whose grave is in me,
Demands from her grave reparation to man,
Reparation to God. Heed, O heed, while you can,
This voice from the grave!"
"Hush!" he moan'd, "I obey
The Soeur Seraphine. There, Lucile! let this pay
Every debt that is due to that grave. Now lead on:
I follow you, Soeur Seraphine!... To the son
Of Lor