he Bishop of Therouenne. They came
to Dijon. In another month I should have been seventeen, and been
admitted as a novice; but, alack! there were all the lands that came
through my grandmother, in Holland and in Flanders, all falling to me,
and Monseigneur of Therouenne, like almost all secular clergy, cannot
endure the religious orders, and would not hear of my becoming a Sister.
They took me away, and the Bishop declared my dedication null, and they
would have bestowed me in marriage at once, I believe, if Heaven had not
aided me, and they could not agree on the person. And then my dear
Countess promised me that she would never let me be given without my free
will.'

'Then,' said Alice, 'the Bishop did cancel your dedication?'

'Yes,' said Esclairmonde; 'but none can cancel the dedication of my
heart. So said the holy man at Zwoll.'

'How, lady?' anxiously inquired Malcolm; 'has not a bishop power to bind
and unloose?'

'Yea,' said Esclairmonde, 'such power that if my childish promise had
been made without purpose or conscience thereof, or indeed if my will
were not with it, it would bind me no more, there were no sin in wedlock
for me, no broken vow. But my own conscience of my vow, and my sense
that I belong to my Heavenly Spouse, proved, he said, that it was not my
duty to give myself to another, and that whereas none have a parent's
right over me, if I have indeed chosen the better part, He to whom I have
promised myself will not let it be taken from me, though I might have to
bear much for His sake. And when I said in presumption that such would
lie light on me, he bade me speak less and pray more, for I knew not the
cost.'

'He must have been a very holy man,' said Alice, 'and strict withal. Who
was he?'

'One Father Thomas, a Canon Regular of the chapter of St. Agnes, a very
saint, who spends his life in copying and illuminating the Holy
Scripture, and in writing holy thoughts that verily seem to have been
breathed into him by special inspiration of God. It was a sermon of his
in Lent, upon chastening and perplexity, that I heard when first I was
snatched from Dijon, that made me never rest till I had obtained his
ghostly counsel. If I never meet him again, I shall thank Heaven for
those months at Zwoll all my life--ere the Duke of Burgundy made my
Countess resign Holland for twelve years to her uncle, and we left the
place. Then, well-nigh against her will, they forced her into a marriage
wit