aller room was better
furnished and more habitable than the larger; thither he introduced me.
Partially withdrawing the blind, he disclosed what seemed more like an
oratory than a boudoir, a very solemn little chamber, looking as if it
were a place rather dedicated to relics and remembrance, than designed
for present use and comfort.

The good father sat down, as if to keep me company; but instead of
conversing, he took out a book, fastened on the page his eyes, and
employed his lips in whispering--what sounded like a prayer or litany.
A yellow electric light from the sky gilded his bald head; his figure
remained in shade--deep and purple; he sat still as sculpture; he
seemed to forget me for his prayers; he only looked up when a fiercer
bolt, or a harsher, closer rattle told of nearing danger; even then, it
was not in fear, but in seeming awe, he raised his eyes. I too was
awe-struck; being, however, under no pressure of slavish terror, my
thoughts and observations were free.

To speak truth, I was beginning to fancy that the old priest resembled
that Pere Silas, before whom I had kneeled in the church of the
Beguinage. The idea was vague, for I had seen my confessor only in dusk
and in profile, yet still I seemed to trace a likeness: I thought also
I recognized the voice. While I watched him, he betrayed, by one lifted
look, that he felt my scrutiny; I turned to note the room; that too had
its half mystic interest.

Beside a cross of curiously carved old ivory, yellow with time, and
sloped above a dark-red _prie-dieu_, furnished duly, with rich missal
and ebon rosary--hung the picture whose dim outline had drawn my eyes
before--the picture which moved, fell away with the wall and let in
phantoms. Imperfectly seen, I had taken it for a Madonna; revealed by
clearer light, it proved to be a woman's portrait in a nun's dress. The
face, though not beautiful, was pleasing; pale, young, and shaded with
the dejection of grief or ill health. I say again it was not beautiful;
it was not even intellectual; its very amiability was the amiability of
a weak frame, inactive passions, acquiescent habits: yet I looked long
at that picture, and could not choose but look.

The old priest, who at first had seemed to me so deaf and infirm, must
yet have retained his faculties in tolerable preservation; absorbed in
his book as he appeared, without once lifting his head, or, as far as I
knew, turning his eyes, he perceived the point tow