The service proceeded slowly, soaking into the abject silence of the worshippers, and the child, more reverent and attentive than ever, rang the bell; it was like a shower of sparks tinkling under the smoky vault, and the silence seemed deeper than ever behind the kneeling boy, upholding with one hand the chasuble of the celebrant, who bowed over the altar.  The Host was elevated amid the shower of silver sound; and then, above the prostrate heads, in the clear sparkle of bells, the golden tulip of a chalice flashed out till, to a final hurried peal, the gilded flower was lowered, and the prostrate worshippers looked up.

And Durtal was thinking,—­

“If only He to whom we refused shelter when the Mother who bore Him was in travail, could find a loving refuge in our souls to-day!  But alas! apart from these nuns, these children, these priests, and these peasant women who cherish Him so truly, how many here present are, like me, embarrassed by His presence, and at all times incapable of making ready the chamber He requires, of receiving Him in a room swept and garnished?

“Alas! to think that things are always the same, always going back to the beginning!  Our souls are still the crafty synagogues who betrayed Him, and the vile Caiaphas that lurks within us rises up at the very moment when we fain would be humble and love Him while we pray!  My God!  My God!  Would it not be better to depart than to drag myself thus, with such a bad grace, into Thy presence?  For, after all, it is all very well for the Abbe Gevresin to insist that I should communicate, he is not I—­he is not in me; he does not know the wild doings in my hidden lairs, or the turmoil in my ruins.  He believes it to be mere nervelessness, indolence.  Alas!  That is not all.  There is a dryness, a coldness, which are not altogether free from a certain amount of irritation and rebelliousness against the rules he insists on.”

The moment of Communion was at hand.  The little boy had gently thrown the white napkin back on the table; the nuns and poor women and peasants went forward, all with clasped hands and bowed heads, and the child took a taper and passed in front of the priest, his eyes almost shut for fear of seeing the Host.

There was in this little creature such a glow of love and reverence that Durtal gazed with admiration and trembled with awe.  Without in the least knowing why, in the midst of the darkness that fell on his soul, of the impotent and wavering feeling that thrilled it without there being any word to describe them, he felt a tide bearing him to the Saviour, and then a recoil.