The Well in the Desert Part 13

"But to desire the love of some human being, or of any human being?"

The eremitess paused an instant before she answered.

"I should condemn myself if I said so," she replied in a low tone, the sad cadence returning to her voice. "I must leave that with G.o.d. He hath undertaken to purge me from sin, and He knows what is sin. If that be so, He will purge me from it. I have put myself in His hands, to be dealt with as pleaseth Him; and my Physician will give me the medicines which He seeth me to need. Let me counsel you to do the same."

"Yet what pleaseth Him might not please me."

"It would be strange if it did."

"Why?" said Philippa.

"Because it is your nature to love sin, and it is His nature to love holiness. And what we love, we become. He that loveth sin must needs be a sinner."

"I do not think I love sin," rejoined Philippa, rather offended.

"That is because you cannot see yourself."

Just what Guy of Ashridge had told her; but not more palatable now than it had been then.

"What is sin?" asked the Grey Lady.

Philippa was ready with a list--of sins which she felt certain she had not committed.

"Give me leave to add one," said the eremitess. "Pride is sin; nay, it is the abominable sin which G.o.d hateth. And is there no pride in you, Lady de Sergeaux? You tell me you cannot forgive your own father. Now I know nothing of you, nor of him; but if you could see yourself as you stand in G.o.d's sight--whatever it be that he hath done--you would know yourself to be as black a sinner as he. Where, then, is your superiority? You have as much need to be forgiven."

"But I have _not_!" cried Philippa, in no dulcet tones, her annoyance getting the better of her civility. "I never was a murderer! I never turned coldly away from one that loved me--for none ever did love me. I never crushed a loving, faithful heart down into the dust. I never brought a child up like a stranger. I never--stay, I will go no further into the catalogue. But I know I am not such a sinner as he--nay, I am not to be compared to him."

"And have you," asked the Grey Lady, very gently, "turned no cold ear to the loving voice of Christ? Have you not kept far away from the heavenly Father? Have you not grieved the Holy Spirit of G.o.d? May it not be said to you, as our Lord said to the Jews of old time,--'Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life'?"

It was only what Guy of Ashridge had said before. But this time there seemed to be a power with the words which had not gone with his.

Philippa was silent. She had no answer to make.

"You are right," she said after a long pause. "I have done all this; but I never saw it before. Mother, the next time you are at the holy ma.s.s, will you pray for me?"

"Why wait till then?" was the rejoinder. "Let us tell Him so now."

And, surprised as she was at the proposal, Philippa knelt down.

"Thank you, and the holy saints bless you," she said, as she rose. "Now I must go; and I hear Lena's voice without. But ere I depart, may I ask you one thing?"

"Anything."

"What could I possibly have said that pained you? For that something did pain you I am sure. I am sorry for it, whatever it may have been."

The soft voice resumed its troubled tone.

"It was only," said the Grey Lady, "that you uttered a name which has not been named in mine hearing for twenty-seven years: you told me where, and doing what, was one of whom and of whose doings I had thought never to hear any more. One, of whom I try never to think, save when I am praying for him, or in the night when I am alone with G.o.d, and can ask Him to pardon me if I sin."

"But whom did I name?" said Philippa, in an astonished tone. "Have I spoken of any but of my husband? Do you know him?"

"I have never heard of him before to-day, nor of you."

"I think I did mention the Duke of Lancaster."

A shake of the head negatived this suggestion.

"Well, I named none else," pursued Philippa, "saving the Earl of Arundel; and you cannot know him."

Even then she felt an intense repugnance to saying, "My father." But, much to her surprise, the Grey Lady slowly bowed her head.

"And in what manner," began Philippa, "can you know--"

But before she uttered another word, a suspicion which almost terrified her began to steal over her. She threw herself on her knees at the feet of the Grey Lady, and grasped her arm tightly.

"All the holy saints have mercy upon us!--are you Isabel La Despenser?"

It seemed an hour to Philippa ere the answer came. And it came in a tone so low and quivering that she only just heard it.

"I was."

And then a great cry of mingled joy and anguish rang through the lonely cell.

"Mother! mine own mother! I am Philippa Fitzalan!"

There was no cry from Isabel. She only held out her arms; and in an embrace as close and tender as that with which they had parted, the long-separated mother and daughter met.

CHAPTER NINE.

TOGETHER.

"Woe to the eye that sheds no tears - No tears for G.o.d to wipe away!"

"G.E.M."

"And is it so hard to forgive?" asked the soft voice of Isabel.

"I will try, but it seems impossible," responded Philippa. "How can any forgive injuries that reach down to the very root of the heart and life?"

"My child," said Isabel, "he that injureth followeth after Satan; but he that forgiveth followeth after G.o.d. It is because our great debt to G.o.d is too mighty for our bounded sight, and we cannot reach to the ends thereof, that we are so ready to require of our fellow-debtors the small and sorry sum owed to ourselves. 'He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen?' And can any love and yet not forgive?"

"It is sometimes easier to love one ere he be seen than after," said Philippa, sarcastically.

Isabel smiled rather sadly, for the latent thought in her daughter's mind was only too apparent to her. Had Philippa known as little of her father as of her mother, her feeling towards him would have been far less bitter. But there was no other answer. Even though twenty-seven years lay between that day and the June morning on which she had quitted Arundel, Isabel could not trust herself to speak of Richard Fitzalan.

She dared not run the risk of re-opening the wound, by looking to see whether it had healed.

"Mother," said Philippa suddenly, "thou wilt come with me to Kilquyt?"