To make a way to the sanctuary the acolytes had almost to push through the people; and at one point the procession was brought to a momentary halt. Instantly a handsome woman, whom Antonio remembered as one of the belles of Senhor Jorge's serão, held up a puzzled, big-eyed child and said, in eager tones loud enough for the monk to hear:
"Look, little one, look! It is a saint that is passing by!"
At the same moment a rough young farmer bent forward and clumsily kissed the hem of Antonio's chasuble. The monk recoiled and almost let the sacred vessels fall. The man's touch and the woman's words had cut him like knives. A saint! He, Antonio the hard, the proud, a saint! All the selfishness of his life rose up before him. His long coldness to José; his persistent aloofness from the life of the village which he ought to have shared and uplifted; his whipping and driving of Isabel with whips of rebuke and argument when he ought to have led her with silken cords of sympathy; his repeated refusals of charity when a little more fasting and a little more labor would have enabled him to feed the hungry; his self-esteem; his want of meekness under opposition and insult—these, all these, were the solid facts of his life, standing up as gaunt and huge as monstrous rocks with only one poor shrunken runnel of love trickling down between. A saint! If the sacred vestments had not been hanging from his shoulders he would have cried, "No, good people, no! Pray for me. I am the poorest sinner of you all."
The crucifer cleared a passage through the kneeling, murmuring, weeping people, and the procession moved on, picking a way among the broad-brimmed hats and wallets of provisions which lay on the pavement. After making five or six yards of progress it came to a halt again. His pious preoccupation could not wholly blind Antonio's eyes to the picturesqueness of the sight. The many-colored kerchiefs of the women, the rich olive skins and glossy black hair of the children, and the bright waistbands of the men were made ten times more sumptuous by the cool, monotonous background of blue-and-white azulejos. Here and there a knot of shepherds, in sheepskins, knelt with their long staves rising up like spears above the heads of an army. Two or three fans moved languidly, like gaudy flowers swaying in a breeze. Straight ahead, beyond the black monks and the purple prelates, rose the high altar, with the Virgin and her Child enthroned above the soft flames of six tall candles, set in candle-sticks of burnished gold.
As the procession resumed its march Antonio's glance was suddenly seized by a sight which almost made him stumble. Close to the wall, beside the cloister doorway, knelt Isabel. Her form was enveloped in an exquisitely fine dust-cloak of silver-gray, and a black lace mantilla covered her head. Yet, even before he saw her face, he knew that it was she. The cherubs in the azulejos above the doorway seemed to be looking down upon her curiously, as if they found in her something different from common clay. Her gaze was fixed upon the ground.
Recovering his self-control by a supreme effort, Antonio advanced to the sanctuary and made the due obeisances. Then he knelt down before the altar. No one wondered that his silent prayer was long; for was he not a saint and was not this his first Mass? The silence was profound from one end of the chapel to the other.
But Antonio's prayers were not what the onlookers thought. Isabel had come back; and, according to his practice, it was necessary to face the fact squarely in the light of common prudence. For nearly twenty years he had cherished one great hope concerning her until it had become a belief. For nearly twenty years he had given thanks to Saint Isabel for her miraculous intercession. But it was possible that, for nearly twenty years, he had been hugging a delusion.
"On the day of your triumph I will be there." So she had spoken; and she was keeping her word. "It isn't only you Southern people who love revenge." So she had stormed on; and perhaps it was for revenge that she was come. With a sickening of heart Antonio suddenly remembered reading in the Villa Branca paper a sordid story of a passionate woman in Sicily who had murdered a virtuous young priest on the steps of the altar. He remembered also young Crowberry's account of the throwing of a bomb at the new Emperor Napoleon in Paris. So far as he knew, such deeds were un-English; and, although Isabel was imperious, he could not credit her with a smoldering Latin vindictiveness leaping up into a fiery blaze of showy crime. Yet, after all, he knew so little of women, so little of the new hysteria which men told him was rife in the world.
What ought he to do? For himself and for his own life he did not care. His work was done; and if God willed that he should add the poor offering of his own blood to the infinite worth of the immaculate Host, he was ready to pour it forth. But what if there should be scandal, or, worse still, sacrilege? Or what if some desperate deed should wreak pain or death upon the innocent people? Ought he to rise from his knees, and to implore the prelates to grant him immediate audience in a place apart? With the whole might of his soul he besought Saint Isabel to intercede for him and to show him God's will.
A child in the nave let fall a rosary of copper beads. At the noise of the metal on the stone Antonio rose up. An inward voice bade him say his Mass and leave the rest with God. Making the sign of the cross, he invoked the Triune Name and said, in a clear voice, "Introibo ad altare Dei."