at the chamber door, upon his marriage night; or even at his last hour, when the sands are nearly run and the priest has done his best, and before him lies all that dark unexplored plain he must travel alone.  I breathed no articulated prayer, all my being prayed, every pulse and current in my body, every urgency of my soul tended upwards to my advocate and guardian in heaven.  I bowed my head, I made the sign of the Cross, I pushed the curtains and went in.  Before me stretched a vast and empty church, desolate exceedingly, at the far end of which, in the gloomy fog, before a lamp-lit altar I saw a woman kneeling stiffly, with uplifted head, as if she watched, not prayed—­watched there and waited, knowing full well the hour was come and the man.

Her head was hooded in a dark handkerchief; I could see her thin hands clasped together—­on the altar-rail; even as I realised these things about her (which, besides her rigid, unprayerful pose, were all there were to see) I must admit to myself that she bore no resemblance to my lady.  That one matter of devotion, and the devotional attitude were enough to condemn her.  For Aurelia was no bargainer in church, but lent herself unreservedly to the holy commerce—­her generous body, her ardent soul—­and asked no interest for the usufruct.  Have I not seen her rain kisses upon the tomb of St. Antony more passionately than I could have dared upon her hand?  Had she ever risen from the outpouring of prayer without the dew of happy tears to bear witness in her eyes to her riven heart?  Her piety was, indeed, her great indulgence, so eager, so luxurious, pursued with such appetite as I have never seen in England or France, nor (assuredly) in Padua, where there is no zest, but much decorum, in the practice of religion.  To see her in church was, as it were, to see a child in her mother’s lap—­able to laugh, to play, to sulk and pout, ah, and to tell a fib, being so sure of forgiveness!  No secret too childish to be kept back, no trouble too light; the mustiness of the season’s oil, the shocking price of potherbs, the delinquency of the milliner’s apprentice who had spoiled a breadth of silk.  She could grumble at her husband, or impart and expect heaven to share her delight at some little kindness he had done her.  Since I have heard her speak calmly to the Madonna about some young gentleman who had followed her three days running to Mass, I am very sure that she and Our Lady were in full agreement on my account.  Thus it was that she, who had been early parted from her earthly parents, nestled into the arms of her heavenly parents.  Upon what warm waves of feeling would Aurelia float into the bosom of the Mother of Sorrows!  With what endearments use her, with what long kisses coax her for little mercies, with what fine confidence promise her little rewards!  And to compare this passionate flooding of heart and mind, of corporeal and spiritual faculty with any incense which that rigid watcher of mysteries had to offer up, were an absurdity and a profanation impossible even to my deluded vision.