k and very cold, and when I attempted
to rise all things swam round me, and the floor of my cell appeared to
heave like the deck of a ship upon a rolling sea.

For days thereafter I was as a man entranced, alternately frozen with
cold and burning with fever; and but that a shepherd who had turned
aside to ask the hermit's blessing discovered me in that condition, and
remained, out of his charity, for some three days to tend me, it is more
than likely I should have died.

He nourished me with the milk of goats, a luxury upon which my strength
grew swiftly, and even after he had quitted my hut he still came daily
for a week to visit me, and daily he insisted that I should consume the
milk he brought me, overruling my protests that my need being overpast
there was no longer the necessity to pamper me.

Thereafter I knew a season of peace.

It was, I then reasoned, as if the Devil having tried me with a
masterstroke of temptation, and having suffered defeat, had abandoned
the contest. Yet I was careful not to harbour that thought unduly, nor
glory in my power, lest such presumption should lead to worse. I thanked
Heaven for the strength it had lent me, and implored a continuance of
its protection for a vessel so weak.

And now the hill-side and valley began to put on the raiment of a new
year. February, like a benignant nymph, tripped down by meadow and
stream, and touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And
soon, where she had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones,
scarlet, blue and purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of
spring in their tender harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling
nardosmia waved their incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted
by the streams.

Then as birch and beech and oak and chestnut put forth a garb of tender
pallid green, March advanced and Easter came on apace.

But the approach of Easter filled me with a staggering dread. It was in
Passion Week that the miracle of the image that I guarded was wont to
manifest itself. What if through my unworthiness it should fail? The
fear appalled me, and I redoubled my prayers. There was need; for spring
which touched the earth so benignly had not passed me by. And at moments
certain longings for the world would stir in me again, and again would
come those agonizing thoughts of Giuliana which I had conceived were for
ever laid to rest, so that I sought refuge once more in the hair-shirt;
and when this h