t had sampled the dust of life's highway; Feet
that had trod rough places, yet never tripped nor stumbled.

"Tempted in all points." . . . Then here was One Who could understand
Hugh's hard temptation; Who could pity, if Hugh fell. Here was One Who
would comprehend the breaking of her poor human heart if, loving Hugh
as she now loved, she yet must leave him.

"A great High Priest." . . . What need of any other priest, while
"with Him in the Holy Mount"? Passed into the heavens, yet ever living
to make intercession for us.

Deep peace stole into her heart, as she knelt in absorbed communion in
this sacred place, where, for the first time, in her religious life,
she had found herself with "Jesus only."

"Ah, blessed Lord!" she cried at length, "Thou Who knowest the heart of
a man, and canst divine the heart of a woman, grant unto me this day a
true vision; a vision which shall make clear to me, without any
possibility of doubt, what is Thy will for me."

CHAPTER LIV

THE UNSEEN PRESENCE

The world was a new and a wonderful world as, leaving the chapel, Mora
turned her steps homeward. She had been wont to regard temptation
itself as sinful, but now this sacred fact "in all points tempted like
as we are" seemed to sanctify the state of being tempted, providing she
could add the three triumphant words: "Yet without sin."

As she walked, with springy step, down the grassy paths among the
heather, the Unseen Presence moved beside her.

It seemed strange that she should have found in the world this sweet
secret of the Perpetual Presence, which had evaded her in the Nunnery.
Often when her duties had taken her elsewhere in the Convent, or during
the walk through the underground way on the return from the Cathedral,
or even when walking for refreshment in the Convent garden, she would
yearn for the holy stillness of the chapel, or to be back in her cell
that she might kneel at the shrine of the Virgin and there realise the
adorable purity of our blessed Lady's heart; or, prostrating herself
before the crucifix, gaze upon those pierced feet, then slowly lift her
eyes to the other sacred wounds, and force her mind to realise and her
cold heart to receive the mighty fact that the Divine Redeemer thus
hung and suffered for her sins.

Transports of realisation had come to her in her cell, or when she kept
vigil in the Convent chapel, or when from the height of the Cathedral
clerestory she gazed down upon the Hig