It would do no good to say what memories of other scenes flashed back on my mind as I was being borne along in the mad procession.  I felt as if it would last for ever.  But it came to an end at length, and as soon as I was released, I begged my husband again to take me home, and when he said, “Not yet; we’ll all be going by-and-by,” I stole away by myself, found a cab, and drove back to the hotel.

The day was dawning as I passed through the stony streets, and when I reached my room, and pulled down my dark green blinds, the bell of the Capuchin monastery in the Via Veneto was ringing and the monks were saying the first of their offices.

I must have been some time in bed, hiding my hot face in the bed-clothes, when Price, my maid, came in to apologise for not having seen me come back alone.  The pain of the woman’s scrutiny was more than I could bear at that moment, so I tried to dismiss her, but I could not get her to go, and at last she said: 

“If you please, my lady, I want to say something.”

I gave her no encouragement, yet she continued.

“I daresay it’s as much as my place is worth, but I’m bound to say it.”

Still I said nothing, yet she went on: 

“His Lordship and Madame have also arrived. . . .  They came back half an hour ago.  And just now . . .  I saw his lordship . . . coming out of Madame’s room.”

“Go away, woman, go away,” I cried in the fierce agony of my shame, and she went out at last, closing the door noisily behind her.

* * * * *

We did not go next day to Benediction at the Reverend Mother’s church.  But late the same night, when it was quite dark, I crept out of my room into the noisy streets, hardly knowing where my footsteps were leading me, until I found myself in the piazza of the Convent of the Sacred Heart.

It was quiet enough there.  Only the Carabinieri were walking on the paved way with measured steps, and the bell of the Dominican monastery was slowly ringing under the silent stars.  I could see the light on the Pope’s loggia at the Vatican and hear the clock of St. Peter’s striking nine.

There were lights in the windows of some of the dormitories also, and by that I knew that the younger children, the children of the Infant Jesus, were going to bed.  There was a light too, in the large window of the church, and that told me that the bigger girls were saying their night prayers.

Creeping close to the convent wall I heard the girls’ voices rising and falling, and then through the closed door of the church came the muffled sound of their evening hymn—­

“Ave maris stella
Dei Mater Alma—­”

I did not know why I was putting myself wilfully to this bitter pain—­the pain of remembering the happy years in which I myself was a girl singing so, and then telling myself that other girls were there now who knew nothing of me.