' Yet he was a man who, when he raised his hand to
lead, led millions like children; who, when he opened his lips to
speak, spoke with the tongue of men and of angels such words as none
had spoken before him--words which were the truth made light; one who,
when he took pen in hand to write to the world's masters, wrote without
fear or fault, as being the scribe of God, but who could pen messages
of tenderest love and gentlest counsel to the broken-hearted and the
heavy-laden.
Gilbert's eyes followed the still, white glory of the monk's face, till
the procession turned in a wide sweep behind the wing of the palace,
and even then the tension of his look did not relax. He was still
kneeling with fixed gaze when the Queen was standing beside him. The
scorn was gone from her lips and had given place to a sort of tender
pity. She touched the young man's shoulder twice before he started,
looked up, and then sprang to his feet.
"Who is that man?" he asked earnestly.
"Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux," answered the Queen, looking far away. "I
almost worshipped him once, when I was a child,--it is the will of
Heaven that I should lose my heart to monks!"
She laughed, as she had laughed from the window.
"Monks?" Gilbert repeated the word with curiosity. "Are you one of
those persons for whom it is necessary to explain everything?" asked
Eleanor, still smiling and looking at him intently. "I think you must
be half a monk yourself, for I heard you singing the psalms as sweetly
as any convent scholar.
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