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"I reain I could see it so vividly, the ht me and believed I could be a priest I saw the cold little cell with its bed of boards; I saw the cloister and the garden veiled in rosy shadow; God, I didn't want to think now of those tiotten

"Do you re that you went into the chapel," she continued, "and you knelt on the bare marble floor, with your arms out in the for if only he would ood?"

"Yes, good" Noas ed with bitterness

"You said you would suffer martyrdom; torments unspeakable; it did not ood "

"Yes, I remember " I saw the old saints; I heard the hy ed them on my knees to let me stay there

"And later, when your innocence was gone, and you took the high road to Paris, it was the sa for the boulevard crowds, you wanted to be good "

"I was," I said haltingly "It was a good thing to make them happy and for a little while I did "

"Yes, happy," she whispered

"I could never explain to Nicolas, my friend, you know, that it was so ioodness, even if we make it up ourselves We don't really make it up It's there, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it's there," she said "It's there because we put it there "

Such sadness I couldn't speak I watched the falling snow I clasped her hand and felt her lips against my cheek

"You were born for me, my prince," she said "You were tried and perfected And in those first years, when you went into your ht her into the world of the undead with you, it was but a prefigure me I am your true Mother, the Mother ill never abandon you, and I have died and been reborn, too All the religions of the world,of you and of me "

"How so?" I asked "How can that be?"

"Ah, but you know You know!" She took the sword fro it across the open palht hand Then she dropped it down into the rusted heap-the last remnants on earth of s, blowing theone

"Discard your old illusions," she said "Your inhibitions They are no ether, ill make the myths of the world real "