Martin spent an hour walking up and down behind the chapel, raging with sudden self-humiliation. Why did she treat him as though he were an old man or a child? _Chapter XII_ The next day came and went, a pageant of white clouds in a deep blue sky, and the earth all green to the purple of the distant hills. Martin Valliant began the morning with a queer flush of excitement, even of trepidation. The woman with the dark hair and the wild woodland eyes would mount her horse and ride away out of his life. And somehow he did not want her to go, nor was he ashamed of the desire. He found himself in awe of her, but he did not fear her as he had feared poor Kate Succory. She was a mystery, a vision, a strange new world that made him stand wide-eyed with wonder. Her lips made him think of the holy wine, pure drink, red as blood, and undefiled. His restlessness began with the dawn. He rang the chapel bell, went through the services, with his thoughts wandering out and waiting expectantly outside the rest-house door. For the very first time the spirit of dissimulation entered Brother Martin’s life, prompting him to walk up and down the grassy space outside his cell, hands folded, head bent, as though in meditation. He saw her door open. She came out, her black hair hanging loose, wished him a calm “good morning,” and went down toward the spring. She had gone to wash herself there, to dabble her hands in the water. Martin paced up and down. She returned, disappeared into the rest-house, and there was silence—suspense. Martin Valliant kept passing the open doorway, but he had not the courage to look in. “Father Martin——” He faced around with a guileless air, as though she had been very distant from his thoughts. “Did you speak to me, Mistress——” “And I have not told you my name! I am called Catharine Lovel. I wish to tarry here for some days, if St. Florence does not forbid it.” Martin looked grave. “I never heard that St. Florence had set a boundary to his charity,” he said. “Then I am the more his debtor in the spirit. This is so sweet and calm a place. I come from a forest country, Father Martin.” “It is a very wonderful country,” he agreed. “And should be pleasant to one who has been vowed to a month’s silence?” Again Martin agreed with her. She stood at gaze, her hands clasped in front of her. “One cannot lose oneself with this moor as a guide post. I shall ride out, Father Martin, and go down into the woods.” “In the valley there the beech trees are very noble,” he said; “I love them.” “Sometimes, Father Martin, trees are nobler than men.” He pondered those words of hers all day. Dusk was falling before she returned. The brown horse’s ears hung limp, as though she had ridden him many miles, and his coat was stained with sweat. Martin Valliant had been standing in the doorway of his cell. He went forward to hold her horse. “I so managed it that I lost myself,” she said.