of God, and that is the love of a woman!  Yet the one purely supernatural end that I had set before me—­that end to which, four days ago, I had said, as I thought, good-bye for ever in the Duchess of Portsmouth’s gallery—­this was the one single thing that was mine after all.  I could take that at least with me into the cloister, and could praise God for it all my life long—­I mean the conversion of the man that was called King of England, the man who, for all his sins and his treatment of me, I yet loved as I have never loved any other man on earth.  I think that in those minutes of sorrow and joy as I paced up and down the little room, my dearest Dolly was not very far away from me and that she knew all that I felt.

Once—­in a loud broken voice through the door—­I heard these words: 

—­“Sweet Jesus.  Amen....  Mercy, Sweet Jesus, Mercy!”

That was the King’s voice that I heard:  and I kneeled down when I heard them.

* * * * *

It would be about ten minutes later, as I still kneeled, that I heard, upon the outside of the door that led down the winding stairs, a very small tapping.

I ran to the door to open it, wondering who it could be; for I had forgotten all about the Portuguese priest, though I had set the candles ready burning, with a napkin on the table between them, in readiness for his coming.  And there he stood, with his eyes cast down, and his hands clasped upon his breast.

I beckoned him forward, pointing to the table, and kneeled down again.

He went past me without a word, kneeled himself before the table and then, unbuttoning his cloak he drew from round his neck the chain and the Pyx from his breast, and laid it all upon the table, continuing himself to kneel.

Presently he turned and looked at me, lifting his brows.

I knew what he wished; rose from my knees and went up the stairs, but very cautiously, lest I should hear anything that I should not.  There was but a very faint murmur of the priest’s voice, so I took courage and pushed the door a little open so that I could see the King.

It was very dark within the curtains, for they were drawn against the candlelight; but I could see what was passing.  His Majesty was lying flat upon his back, with his hands clasped beneath his chin, and Mr. Huddleston was in the very act of arranging the coverlet over him again, after the last Anointing.  As I looked the priest turned and caught my eyes, as he put the oil-stock and the wool away again in his cassock breast.  I nodded three times very emphatically—­(His Majesty did not see me at all, for his eyes were closed)—­and went back again down the stairs and kneeled once more.  A few moments later Mr. Huddleston came through.

I have never seen so swift a change in any man’s face.  He had been terrified as he had gone in—­all pale and shaking.  Now he was still pale, but his eyes shone, and there was a look of great assurance in his face.  He came straight down the steps without speaking, kneeled, rose again, took up the Pyx and the corporal which Father de Lemoz had spread beneath it, and passed up and out again.  His priesthood, I suppose, had risen in him like a great tide, and driven out all other emotions.