Love Among the Ruins. Warwick Deeping

choked with grass; a rickety door drooped rotten on its rusty hinges.

      Fulviac pushed through and beckoned the girl to follow. Within, all was ruinous and desolate, the roof fallen, the casements broken.

      "We must find harbour here," said the man, "our horses go far to-morrow."

      "A cheerful hostel, this."

      "Its wildness makes it safe. You fear the cold. I'll see to that."

      "No. I am hungry."

      The high altar still stood below the small rose window in the east, where the rotting fragments of a triptych hid the stonework. There was a great carved screen of stone on either side, curiously recessed as though giving access to an ambulatory. The altar stood in dense shadow, with broken timber and a tangle of briars ringing a barrier about its steps. On the southern side of the nave, a patch of tiled flooring still stood riftless, closed in by two fallen pillars. The groom came in with two horse-cloaks, and Fulviac spread them on the tiles. He also gave her a small flask of wine, and a silver pyx holding meat and bread.

      "We crusaders must not grumble at the rough lodging," he said to her; "wrap yourself in these cloaks, and play the Jacob with a stone pillow."

      She smiled slightly in her eyes. The groom brought in a saddle, ranged it with a saddle cloth covering it, that it might rest her head.

      "And you?" she said to Fulviac.

      "Damian and I hold the porch."

      "You will be cold."

      "I have a thick hide. The Lady of Geraint give you good rest!"

      He threaded his way out amid the fallen stones and pillars, and closed the rickety gate. The groom, a tall fellow in a battered bassinet and a frayed brigantine, stood by the yew trees, as on guard. Fulviac gestured to him. The man moved away towards the eastern end of the chapel, where laurels grew thick and lusty about the walls. When he returned Fulviac was sitting hunched on a fallen stone in the corner of the porch, as though for sleep. The man dropped a guttural message into his master's ear, and propped himself in the other angle of the porch.

      An hour passed; the moon swam past the zenith towards the west; a vast quiet watched over the world, and no wind rippled in the woods. In the sky the stars shivered, and gathered more closely their silver robes. In the curtilage the ruined tombs stared white and desolate at the moon.

      An owl's cry sounded in the woods. Sudden and strange, as though dropped from the stars, faint music quivered on the frost-brilliant air. It gathered, died, grew again, with a mysterious flux of sweetness, as of some song stealing from the Gardens of the Dead. Flute, cithern, and viol were sounding under the moon, merging a wizard chant into the magic of the hour. Angels, crimson-winged, in green attire, seemed to descend the burning stair of heaven.

      A sudden great radiance lit the ruin, a glory of gold streaming from the altar. Cymbals clashed; waves of shimmering light surged over the broken walls. Incense, like purple smoke, curled through the casements. The music rushed in clamorous rapture to the stars. A voice was heard crying in the chapel, elfin and wild, yet full of a vague rich sanctity. It ceased sudden as the brief moan of a prophecy. The golden glow elapsed; the music sank to silence. Nought save the moonlight poured in silver omnipotence over the ruin.

      From the chapel came the sound of stumbling footsteps amid the stones. A hand clutched at the rotting door, jerked it open, as in terror. The girl Yeoland came out into the porch, and stood swaying white-faced in the shadow.

      "Fulviac."

      Her voice was hoarse and whispering, strained as the overwrought strings of a lute. The man did not stir. She bent down, dragged at his cloak, calling to him with a quick and gathering vehemence. He shook himself, as from the thongs of sleep, stood up and stared at her. The groom still crouched in the dark corner.

      "Fulviac."

      She thrust her way through the briars into the moonlight. Her hood had fallen back, her hair loose upon her shoulders; her eyes were full of a supernatural stupor, and she seemed under the spell of some great shock of awe. She trembled so greatly, that Fulviac followed her, and held her arm.

      "Speak. What has chanced to you?"

      She still shook like some flower breathed upon by the oracular voice of God. Her hands were torn and bloody from the thorns.

      "The Virgin has appeared to me."

      "Are you mad?"

      "The Virgin."

      "Some ghost or phantom."

      "No, no, hear me."

      She stretched out her hands like one smitten blind, and took breath swiftly in sudden gasps.

      "Hear me, I was but asleep, woke, and heard music. The Virgin came out upon the altar, her face like the moon, her robes white as the stars. There was great light, great glory. And she spoke to me. Mother of God, what am I that I should be chosen thus!"

      "Speak. Can this be true?"

      "The truth, the truth!"

      Fulviac fell on his knees with a great gesture of awe. The girl, her face turned to the moon, stood quivering like a reed, her lips moving as if in prayer.

      "Her message, child?"

      "Ah, it was this: 'Go forth a virgin, and lead the hosts of the Lord.'"

      Fulviac's face was in shadow. He thrust up his hands to the heavens, but would not so much as glance at the girl above him. His voice rang out in the silence of the night:--

      "Gloria tibi, Sancta Maria! Gloria tibi, Domine!"