Elinor's only answer was a deep groan. Drawing her cloak close round her, she turned and fled toward the house, her head bowed like some wild creature that had got its death-wound.
CHAPTER IX
A REQUIEM MASS
Gloom lay on St. Gabriel's. In the little chapel at the end of the hall stood a rude bier, and on it lay the figure of Father Mohl, his hands crossed upon his breast. Near the bier knelt Elinor Calvert, telling her beads, but absently, as though her thoughts were far away, and on her face such a look of utter and unspeakable grief as would have melted a heart of stone. Her golden hair was drawn back from her pale forehead, and her lashes fell over deep shadowy circles which sorrow had traced on her cheek. Grief's pencil works swiftly.
Gusts of chill wind swept along the uncarpeted floor in little eddies, and stirred the heavy folds of her black dress.
Not far from her knelt Peggy Neville, miserably ill at ease in a ceremonial unfamiliar and unsympathetic. She was too young to throw herself into the spirit of other people's emotions, and found comfort only in the society of those who threw themselves into hers. In spite of her awe in the presence of death, her thoughts would wander ever and anon to the scenes in the forest, to Romney's words, and, shame upon her! she could not for her life help wondering if he were looking at her now, and if her feet showed beneath her dress as she knelt. And all the while the young man saw her as a vision of a saint kneeling in the depth of the shadows.
From the altar sounded Father White's voice in the solemn rhythmic cadences of the mass, and the voices below answered in their tremulous responses,—
Dominus vobiscum—
Et cum spiritu tuo.