Then Hugh's request, and the Bishop's hand laid upon her, the Bishop's voice uplifted in blessing.

Then once again the measured tramp, tramp, and the steady swing of the stretcher; but now the men's heels rang on cobbles, and voices seemed everywhere; cheery greetings, snatches of song, chance words concerning a bargain or a meeting, a light jest, a coarse oath; and, all the while, the steady, tramp, tramp, and the ring of Hugh's spurs.
She grew faint and it seemed to her she was about to die beneath the cloak, and that when at length Hugh removed it, it would prove a pall beneath which he would find a dead bride.
"Dead bride! Dead bride!" sounded the tramping footsteps.

And all the way she was haunted by the belief, assailing her confused senses in the darkness, that the spirit of Father Gervaise had met the stretcher; that his was the voice which murmured low and tenderly; "Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.

Go in peace." With this had come a horror of the outer world, a wild desire for the safety and shelter of the Cloister, and an absolute physical dread of the moment when the covering cloak should be removed, and she would find herself alone with her lover; and, on rising from the stretcher, be seized by his arms.
Yet when, having been tilted up steps, she was conscious of the silence of passages and soon the even more complete quiet of a room; when the stretcher was set down, and the bearers' feet died away, Hugh's deep voice said gently: "Change thy garments quickly, my beloved.

There is no time to lose." But he laid no hand upon the cloak, and his footsteps, also, died away.
Then pushing back the heavy folds and sitting up, she had found herself alone in a bedchamber, everything she could need laid ready to her hand; while, upon the bed, lay her green riding-dress, discarded forever, eight years before! Her mind refused to look back upon the half-hour that followed.
She saw herself next appearing in the doorway at the top of a flight of eight steps, leading down into the yard of the hostelry, where a cavalcade of men and horses waited; while Icon, the Bishop's beautiful white palfrey, was being led to and fro, and Hugh stood with an open letter in his hand.
As she hesitated in the doorway, gazing down upon the waiting, restive crowd, Hugh looked up and saw her.