Suddenly the wildness of this place where she knelt became terrible to her. She felt the horror of solitude, of approaching darkness. The outlines of the rocks and of the ruined castle looked threatening, alarming. The pale light of the lamp before the shrine and of Lucrezia's votive candle drew to them not only the fluttering night-moths, but the spirits of desolation and of hollow grief that dwell among the waste places and among the hills. Night seemed no more beneficent, but dreary as a spectre that came to rob the world of all that made it beautiful. The loneliness of deserted women encompassed her. Was there any other loneliness comparable to it?
She felt sure that there was not, and she found herself praying not only for Lucrezia, but for all women who were sad because they loved, for all women who were deserted by those whom they loved, or who had lost those whom they loved.
At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she must, appeal.
Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such passion, with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her—and she had no feeling that this was blasphemous—as if God knew, understood, everything of the world He had created except perhaps this—the inmost agony some women suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer. And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to God.
Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one she loved best. She had passed beyond that, as she had passed beyond the Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but of woman praying in the night to the God who had made woman and the night.
From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones, and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they prayed.
Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of his was a priest's son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his mind, for being incredulous of the sanctity of those who celebrated the mass to which he seldom went. But he believed in God, and he believed superstitiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors sending up such earnest petitions? She was not a Catholic. He had never seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he wanted to be back at the priest's house, he wanted to see his padrone again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the Madonna and the saints.
He grew more and more uneasy. Presently he drew softly a little nearer. It was getting late. Night had fallen. He must know the result of the padrone's interview with Salvatore, and he could not leave the padrona. Well, then—! He crept nearer and nearer till at last he was close to the shrine and could see the Madonna smiling. Then he crossed himself and said, softly:
"Signora!"
Hermione did not hear him. She was wrapped in the passion of her prayer.