was altogether unlike her real self. For five or six months did she
carry this secret purpose in her heart, making a greater show of mirth
than had ever been her wont.

But one day she went with her mistress to the Observance to hear high
mass, and when the priest, the deacon and the sub-deacon came out of the
vestry to go to the high altar, she saw her hapless lover, who had not
yet fulfilled his year of novitiate, acting as acolyte, carrying the
two vessels covered with a silken cloth, and walking first with his
eyes upon the ground. When Pauline saw him in such raiment as did rather
increase than diminish his comeliness, she was so exceedingly moved and
disquieted, that to hide the real reason of the colour that came into
her face, she began to cough. Thereupon her unhappy lover, who knew this
sound better than that of the cloister bells, durst not turn his head;
still on passing in front of her he could not prevent his eyes from
going the road they had so often gone before; and whilst he thus
piteously gazed on Pauline, he was seized in such wise by the fire which
he had considered well-nigh quelled, that whilst striving to conceal it
more than was in his power, he fell at full length before her. However,
for fear lest the cause of his fall should be known, he was led to say
that it was by reason of the pavement of the church being broken in that
place.

When Pauline perceived that the change in his dress had not wrought any
change in his heart, and that so long a time had gone by since he had
become a monk, that every one believed her to have forgotten him, she
resolved to fulfil the desire she had conceived to bring their love to
a like ending in respect of raiment, condition and mode of life, even
as these had been akin at the time when they abode together in the
same house, under the same master and mistress. More than four months