Once more at Wherwell, she entered the Abbey, and albeit she took the
veil herself she was not under the same strict rule as her sister nuns.
The Abbess herself retired to Winchester and ruled the convent from that
city, while Elfrida had the liberty she desired, to live and do as she
liked in her own rooms and attend prayers and meals only when inclined
to do so. There, as always, since Edward's death, her life was a
solitary one, and in the cold season she would have her fire of logs and
sit before it as in the old days in the castle, brooding ever on her
happy and unhappy past and on the awful future, the years and centuries
of suffering and purification.
It was chiefly this thought of the solitariness of that future state,
that companionless way, centuries long, that daunted her. Here in this
earthly state, darkened as it was, there were yet two souls she could
and constantly did hold communion with--Editha still on earth, though
not with her, and Edward in heaven; but in that dreadful desert to which
she would be banished there would be a great gulf set between her soul
and theirs.
But perhaps there would be others she had known, whose lives had been
interwoven with hers, she would be allowed to commune with in that same
place.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115