“We heard this morning that you were coming, and we thought it curious,” she observed; and called again for her horse to be saddled.  “How far is this place where he is lying?  I have no knowledge of the Ultenthal.  Has he a doctor attending him?  When was he wounded?  It is but common humanity to see that he is attended by an efficient doctor.  My nerves are unstrung by the recent blow to our family; that is why—­Oh, my father! my holy father!” she turned to a grey priest’s head that was rising up the ascent, “I thank God for you!  Lena is away riding; she weeps constantly when she is within four walls.  Come in and give me tears, if you can; I am half mad for the want of them.  Tears first; teach me patience after.”

The old priest fanned his face with his curled hat, and raised one hand as he uttered a gentle chiding in reproof of curbless human sorrow.  Anna said to Vittoria, coldly, “I thank you for your message:”  she walked into the castle by his side, and said to him there:  “The woman you saw outside has a guilty conscience.  You will spend your time more profitably with her than with me.  I am past all religious duties at this moment.  You know, father, that I can open my heart.  Probe this Italian woman; search her through and through.  I believe her to be blood-stained and abominable.  She hates us.  She has sworn an oath against us.  She is malignant.”

It was not long before Anna issued forth and rode down to the vale.  The priest beckoned to Vittoria from the gates.  He really supposed her to have come to him with a burdened spirit.

“My daughter,” he addressed her.  The chapter on human error was opened:”  We are all of one family—­all of us erring children—­all of us bound to abnegate hatred:  by love alone are we saved.  Behold the Image of Love—­ the Virgin and Child.  Alas! and has it been visible to man these more than eighteen hundred years, and humankind are still blind to it?  Are their ways the ways of comfort and blessedness?  Their ways are the ways of blood; paths to eternal misery among howling fiends.  Why have they not chosen the sweet ways of peace, which are strewn with flowers, which flow with milk?”—­The priest spread his hand open for Vittoria’s, which she gave to his keeping, and he enclosed it softly, smoothing it with his palms, and retaining it as a worldly oyster between spiritual shells.  “Why, my daughter, why, but because we do not bow to that Image daily, nightly, hourly, momently!  We do not worship it that its seed may be sown in us.  We do not cling to it, that in return it may cling to us.”

He spoke with that sensuous resource of rich feeling which the contemplation of the Image does inspire.  And Vittoria was not led reluctantly into the oratory of the castle to pray with him; but she refused to confess.  Thereupon followed a soft discussion that was as near being acerb as nails are near velvet paws.