The convent-bell struck midnight, and there was a foot-fall in the cloister. I was startled by it out of an entire forgetfulness of all around me, for I was lying on my bed in the monastery cell, with my hands clasped over my eyes, as I had thrown myself down on coming in; and, with a strange contrariety, my mind, broken rudely from its hope, had flown to my far away home, oblivious of the benumbed links that lay between. A knock at my door completed the return to my despair, for with a look at the walls of my little chamber, in the bright beam of moonlight that streamed in at the narrow window, I was, by recognition, again at Vallambrosa, and Stephania, with an accepted lover's voice in her ear, was again near me, her moistened eyes steeped with Palgray's in the same beam of the all-visiting and unbetraying moon.
Father Ludovic entered. The gentle tone of his _benedicite_, told me that he had come on an errand of sympathy. There was little need of preliminary between two who read the inner countenance as habitually as did both of us; and as briefly as the knowledge and present feeling of each could be re-expressed in words, we confirmed the spirit-mingling that had brought him there, and were presently as one. He had read truly the drama of love, enacting in the party of visiters to his convent, but his judgment of the possible termination of it was different from mine.
Palgray's dormitory was at the extremity of the cloister, and we presently heard him pass.
"She is alone, now," said Father Ludovic, "I will send you to her."
My mind had strained to Stephania's presence with the first footsteps that told me of their separation; and it needed but a wave of his hand to unlink the spirit-wings from my weary frame. I was present with her.
I struggled for a moment, but in vain, to see her face. Its expression was as visible as my hand in the sun, but no feature. The mind I had read was close to me, in a presence of consciousness; and, in points, here and there, brighter, bolder, and further-reaching than I had altogether believed. She was unutterably pure--a spirit without a spot--and I remained near her with a feeling as if my forehead were pressed down to the palms of my hands, in homage mixed with sorrow, for I should have more recognized this in my waking study of her nature.