Soon, however, her ear became sealed to all outward disturbance.
She had fled to the church, driven by many young impulses, but
among them was the keen hope that her new Sorrow, which had begun
to follow her everywhere since she awoke, would wait outside when
she entered those doors: so dark a spirit would surely not stalk
behind her into the very splendor of the Spotless. But as she now
let her eyes wander down the isle to the chancel railing where she
had knelt at confirmation, where bridal couples knelt in receiving
the benediction, Isabel felt that this new Care faced her from
there as from its appointed shrine; she even fancied that in effect
it addressed to her a solemn warning:
"Isabel, think not to escape me in this place! It is here that
Rowan must seem to you most unworthy and most false; to have
wronged you most cruelly. For it was here, at this altar, that you
had expected to kneel beside him and be blessed in your marriage.
In years to come, sitting where you now sit, you may live to see
him kneel here with another, making her his wife. But for you,
Isabel, this spot must ever mean the renunciation of marriage, the
bier of love. Then do not think to escape me here, me, who am
Remembrance."
And Isabel, as though a command had been laid upon her, with her
eyes fixed on the altar over which the lights of the stained glass
windows were joyously playing, gave herself up to memories of all
the innocent years that she had known Rowan and of the blind years
that she had loved him.
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