Two hours later the stranger returned, knocked cautiously at the door of the garret, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de Langeais, who led him to the inner chamber of the humble refuge, where all was in readiness for the ceremony.  Between two flues of the chimney the nuns had placed the old chest of drawers, whose broken edges were concealed by a magnificent altar-cloth of green moire.  A large ebony and ivory crucifix hanging on the discolored wall stood out in strong relief from the surrounding bareness, and necessarily caught the eye.  Four slender little tapers, which the sisters had contrived to fasten to the altar with sealing-wax, threw a pale glimmer dimly reflected by the yellow wall.  These feeble rays scarcely lit up the rest of the chamber, but as their light fell upon the sacred objects it seemed a halo falling from heaven upon the bare and undecorated altar.

The floor was damp.  The attic roof, which sloped sharply on both sides of the room, was full of chinks through which the wind penetrated.  Nothing could be less stately, yet nothing was ever more solemn than this lugubrious ceremony.  Silence so deep that some far-distant cry could have pierced it, lent a sombre majesty to the nocturnal scene.  The grandeur of the occasion contrasted vividly with the poverty of its circumstances, and roused a feeling of religious terror.  On either side of the altar the old nuns, kneeling on the tiled floor and taking no thought of its mortal dampness, were praying in concert with the priest, who, robed in his pontifical vestments, placed upon the altar a golden chalice incrusted with precious stones,—­a sacred vessel rescued, no doubt, from the pillage of the Abbaye des Chelles.  Close to this vase, which was a gift of royal munificence, the bread and wine of the consecrated sacrifice were contained in two glass tumblers scarcely worthy of the meanest tavern.  In default of a missal the priest had placed his breviary on a corner of the altar.  A common earthenware platter was provided for the washing of those innocent hands, pure and unspotted with blood.  All was majestic and yet paltry; poor but noble; profane and holy in one.

The unknown man knelt piously between the sisters.  Suddenly, as he caught sight of the crape upon the chalice and the crucifix,—­for in default of other means of proclaiming the object of this funeral rite the priest had put God himself into mourning,—­the mysterious visitant was seized by some all-powerful recollection, and drops of sweat gathered on his brow.  The four silent actors in this scene looked at each other with mysterious sympathy; their souls, acting one upon another, communicated to each the feelings of all, blending them into the one emotion of religious pity.  It seemed as though their thought had evoked from the dead the sacred martyr whose body was devoured by quicklime, but whose shade rose up before them in royal majesty.  They were celebrating a funeral Mass without the remains of the deceased.  Beneath