he will have given thee
up, being so late."

"Let me get to her," said Clement hastily, trembling all over.

"That door! I will bide here."

When Gerard was gone to the door, Margaret, fearing the sudden surprise,
gave one sharp tap at the window and cried, "Mother!" in a loud,
expressive voice that Catherine read at once. She clasped her hands
together and had half risen from her kneeling posture when the door
burst open and Clement flung himself wildly on his knees at her knees,
with his arms out to embrace her. She uttered a cry such as only a
mother could, "Ah! my darling, my darling!" and clung sobbing round his
neck. And true it was, she saw neither a hermit, a priest, nor a monk,
but just her child, lost, and despaired of, and in her arms, And after a
little while Margaret came in, with wet eyes and cheeks, and a holy calm
of affection settled by degrees on these sore troubled ones. And
they sat all three together, hand in hand, murmuring sweet and loving
converse; and he who sat in the middle drank right and left their true
affection and their humble but genuine wisdom, and was forced to eat a
good nourishing meal, and at daybreak was packed off to a snowy bed,
and by and by awoke, as from a hideous dream, friar and hermit no more,
Clement no more, but Gerard Eliassoen, parson of Gouda.

(1) I think she means prejudice.

CHAPTER XCVI

Margaret went back to Rotterdam long ere Gerard awoke, and actually left
her boy behind her. She sent the faithful, sturdy Reicht off to Gouda
directly with a vicar's grey frock and large felt hat, and with minute
instructions how to govern her new master.

Then she went to Jorian Ketel; for she said to herself, "he is the
closest I ever met, so he is the man for me," and in concert with him
she did two mortal sly things; yet not, in my opinion, virulent, though
she thought they were; but if I am asked what were these deeds without
a name, the answer is, that as she, who was, 'but a woman,' kept them
secret till her dying day, I, who am a man--"Verbum non amplius addam."

She kept away from Gouda parsonage.

Things that pass little noticed in the heat of argument sometimes rankle
afterwards; and when she came to go over all that had passed, she was
offended at Gerard thinking she could ever forget the priest in the some
time lover, "For what did he take me?" said she. And this raised a great
shyness which really she would not otherwise have felt, being downright