The girl's desolate heart melted within her. In these weeks of groping, religion had not meant much to her. It had been like a bird-voice which night silences. All the energy of her life had gone into endurance. But now it was as though her soul plunged into the freshness of vast waters, which upheld and sustained--without effort. Amid the shadows and phantasms of the church--between the faces on the walls and the kneeling peasants, both equally significant and alive--those ghosts of her own heart that moved with her perpetually in the life of memory stood, or knelt, or gazed, with the rest: the piteous figure of her mother; her father's gray hair and faltering step; Oliver's tall youth. Never would she escape them any more; they were to be the comrades of her life, for Nature had given her no powers of forgetting. But here, in the shrine of St. Francis, it was as though the worst smart of her anguish dropped from her. From the dark splendor, the storied beauty of the church, voices of compassion and of peace spoke to her pain; the waves of feeling bore her on, unresisting; she closed her eyes against the lights, holding back the tears. Life seemed suspended, and suffering ceased.
"So we have tracked you!" whispered a voice in her ear. She looked up startled. Three English travellers had quietly made their way to the back of the altar. Sir James Chide stood beside her; and behind him the substantial form of Mr. Ferrier, with the merry snub-nosed face of Bobbie Forbes smiling over the great man's shoulder.
Diana--smiling back--put a finger to her lip; the service was at its height, and close as they were to the altar decorum was necessary. Presently, guided by her, they moved softly on to a remoter and darker corner.
"Couldn't we escape to the Upper Church?" asked Chide of Diana.
She nodded, and led the way. They stole in and out of the kneeling groups of the north transept, and were soon climbing the stairway that links the two churches, out of sight and hearing of the multitude below. Here there was again pale daylight. Greetings were interchanged, and both Chide and Ferrier studied Diana's looks with a friendly anxiety they did their best to conceal. Forbes also observed Juliet Sparling's daughter--hotly curious--yet also hotly sympathetic. What a story, by Jove!
Their footsteps echoed in the vast emptiness of the Upper Church. Apparently they had it to themselves.
"No friars!" said Forbes, looking about him. "That's a blessing, anyway! You can't deny, Miss Mallory, that they're a blot on the landscape. Or have you been flattering them up, as all the other ladies do who come here?"
"We have only just arrived. What's wrong with the friars?" smiled Diana.
"Well, we arrived this morning, and I've about taken their measure--though Ferrier won't allow it. But I saw four of them--great lazy, loafing fellows, Miss Mallory--much stronger than you or me--being dragged up these abominable hills--four of 'em--in one legno--with one wretched toast-rack of a horse. And not one of them thought of walking. Each of them with his brown petticoats, and an umbrella as big as himself. Ugh! I offered to push behind, and they glared at me. What do you think St. Francis would have said to them? Kicked them out of that legno, pretty quick, I'll bet you!"