s.

"Thank God!" she cried, "thank God! Oh, bless thee, Gerard, bless thee!
Why, what is here, Gerard?"

On the other leaves were pinned every scrap of paper she had ever sent
him, and their two names she had once written together in sport, and
the lock of her hair she had given him, and half a silver coin she had
broken with him, and a straw she had sucked her soup with the first day
he ever saw her.

When Margaret saw these proofs of love and signs of a gentle heart
bereaved, even her exultation at getting back her marriage lines was
overpowered by gushing tenderness. She almost staggered, and her hand
went to her bosom, and she leaned her brow against the stone cell and
wept so silently that he did not see she was weeping; indeed she would
not let him, for she felt that to befriend him now she must be the
stronger; and emotion weakens.

"Gerard," said she, "I know you are wise and good. You must have a
reason for what you are doing, let it seem ever so unreasonable. Talk we
like old friends. Why are you buried alive?"

"Margaret, to escape temptation. My impious ire against those two had
its root in the heart; that heart then I must deaden, and, Dei gratia, I
shall. Shall I, a servant of Christ and of the Church, court temptation?
Shall I pray daily to be led out on't, and walk into it with open eyes?"

"That is good sense anyway," said Margaret, with a consummate
affectation of candour.

"'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh.

"We shall see. Tell me, have you escaped temptation here? Why I ask
is, when I am alone, my thoughts are far more wild and foolish than in
company. Nay, speak sooth; come!"

"I must needs own I have been worse tempted here with evil imaginations
than in the world."

"There now."

"Ay, but so were Anthony and Jerome, Macarius and Hilarion, Benedict,
Bernard, and all the saints. 'Twill wear off."

"How do you know?"

"I feel sure it will."

"Guessing against knowledge. Here 'tis men folk are sillier than us that
be but women. Wise in their own conceits, they will not let themselves
see; their stomachs are too high to be taught by their eyes. A woman, if
she went into a hole in a bank to escape temptation, and there found it,
would just lift her farthingale and out on't, and not e'en know how wise
she was, till she watched a man in like plight."

"Nay, I grant humility and a teachable spirit are the roads to wisdom;
but when all is said, here I wrestle but with imagin