It was very hard to bear.  A better woman than Unorna might have felt something evil and cruel and hating in her heart, at the sight of so much beauty in one who held her place, in the queen of the kingdom where she longed to reign.  Unorna’s cheek grew very pale, and her unlike eyes were fierce and dangerous.  It was well for her that she could not speak to Beatrice then, for she wore no mask, and the dark beauty would have seen the danger of death in the face of the fair, and would have turned and defended herself in time.

But the sweet singing of the nuns came softly up from below, echoing to the groined roof, rising and falling, high and low; and the full radiance of the many waxen tapers shone steadily from the great altar, gilding and warming statue and cornice and ancient moulding, and casting deep shadows into all the places that it could not reach.  And still the two women knelt in their high balcony, the one rapt in fervent prayer, the other wondering that the presence of such hatred as hers should have no power to kill, and all the time making a supreme effort to compose her own features into the expression of friendly sympathy and interest which she knew she would need so soon as the singing ceased and it was time to leave the church again.

The psalms were finished.  There was a pause, and then the words of the ancient hymn floated up to Unorna’s ears, familiar in years gone by.  Almost unconsciously she herself, by force of old habit, joined in the first verse.  Then, suddenly, she stopped, not realising, indeed, the horrible gulf that lay between the words that passed her lips, and the thoughts that were at work in her heart, but silenced by the near sound of a voice less rich and full, but far more exquisite and tender than her own.  Beatrice was singing, too, with joined hands, and parted lips, and upturned face.

“Let dreams be far, and phantasms of the night—­bind Thou our Foe,” sang Beatrice in long, sweet notes.

Unorna heard no more.  The light dazzled her, and the blood beat in her heart.  It seemed as though no prayer that was ever prayed could be offered up more directly against herself, and the voice that sang it, though not loud, had the rare power of carrying every syllable distinctly in its magic tones, even to a great distance.  As she knelt, it was as if Beatrice had been even nearer, and had breathed the words into her very ear.  Afraid to look round, lest her face should betray her emotion, Unorna glanced down at the kneeling nuns.  She started.  Sister Paul, alone of them all, was looking up, her faded eyes fixed on Unorna’s with a look that implored and yet despaired, her clasped hands a little raised from the low desk before her, most evidently offering up the words with the whole fervent intention of her pure soul, as an intercession for Unorna’s sins.