With a shiver of apprehension Alice turned away from the whispering shadows and went to the Virgin’s shrine, where she knelt and tried to pray.  The candles sputtered before her, and she shut her eyes tight, which made colored patterns come and go behind the lids, fascinating geometrical figures that changed and faded and grew stronger.  And suddenly, inside a widening green circle, she saw a face, the face of a young man with laughing gray eyes, and her heart beat with joy.  She loved him, she loved him!—­that was her secret and the cause of her unhappiness, for she must hide her love, especially from him; she must give him some cold word, some evasive reason, not the real one, when he should come presently for his answer.  Ah, that was the great fact, he was coming for his answer—­he, her hero man, her impetuous American with the name she liked so much, Lloyd Kittredge—­how often she had murmured that name in her lonely hours!—­he would be here shortly for his answer.

And alas! she must say “No” to him, she must give him pain; she could not hope to make him understand—­how could anyone understand?—­and then, perhaps, he would misjudge her, perhaps he would leave her in anger and not come back any more.  Not come back any more!  The thought cut with a sharp pang, and in her distress she moved her lips silently in the familiar prayer printed before her: 

   O Marie, souvenez vous du moment supreme ou Jesus votre divin Fils,
   expirant sur la croix, nous confia a votre maternelle solicitude.

Her thoughts wandered from the page and flew back to her lover; Why was he so impatient?  Why was he not willing to let their friendship go on as it had been all these months?  Why must he ask this inconceivable question and insist on having an answer?  His wife!  Her cheeks flamed at the word and her heart throbbed wildly.  His wife!  How wonderful that he should have chosen her, so poor and obscure, for such an honor, the highest he could pay a woman!  Whatever happened she would at least have this beautiful memory to comfort her loneliness and sorrow.

A descending step on the tower stairs broke in upon her meditations, and she rose quickly from her knees.  The sacristan had finished his rounds and was coming to close the outer doors.  It was time for her to go.  And, with a glance at her hair in a little glass and a touch to her hat, she went out into the garden back of Notre-Dame, where she knew her lover would be waiting.  There he was, strolling along the graveled walk near the fountain, switching his cane impatiently.  He had not seen her yet, and she stood still, looking at him fondly, dreading what was to come, yet longing to hear the sound of his voice.  How handsome he was!  What a nice gray suit, and—­then Kittredge turned.